Health Wildcatters launches HW Venture Center to facilitate an investor-launched showdown
notes: Health Wildcatters is a partner at the Medcity Invest Digital Health conference in Pegasus Park, Dallas on September 18. To learn more, Click here.
Venture capitalists can be a tough group for startups to visit. They will do their best to cover up their identity in the meeting, skillfully turning the badges around, and entrepreneurs are expected to yell at the audience to market their business. They prefer to meet on their terms.
For startups and accelerators trying to support them, the struggle is real. Dr. Hubert Zajicek, a Health Wildcatters partner, co-founder and CEO, has developed a docking strategy that balances the capital investment activities of accelerator startups with the time commitment of healthcare investors. The HW Venture Center is designed to take into account the needs of two groups. The center has expanded the office space of the accelerator to enable investors to have office hours and accommodate startups interested in anchoring themselves to the location of Pegasus Park for healthy wild people. Investors passing through Dallas have a place where they can work and meet with startups that match their investment strategy priorities.
Zajicek noted that 14 investors have committed to providing office hours at HW Venture Center in July and August. Companies involved include: SHD Partners, Tower Capital, View Ventures, Averin Capital, Belal Badat Ventures, Heinz Ventures, GPG, Mimosa VC, Cowtown Angels, Golden Seeds, The Toronto Stock Exchange and Corewell Health Ventures.
Since its launch in 2016, Healthy Savages have been adding venture capital and angel investors in the HW alliance. Currently, it has 71 investors with a target of 100.
Zajicek said startups using the space have connections with Texas. Investors who may visit Dallas for board meetings or conduct connection flights at one of the nearby airports are encouraged to use time and office space to meet with one or two startups.
The program is open to all startups in the healthcare sector, including the Healthy Wildcat portfolio and resident companies. Startups with connections to Texas or Dallas are particularly encouraged to participate.
“We provide details of startups that meet investor standards. They will get a 24-hour response. It's simple,” Zajicek said. He noted that seven VCs are meeting startups this month at the HW Center, with August scheduled for August.
Zajicek believes Dallas has benefited from the growth trend even before the COVID-19-19 pandemic. Even as traditional investment hotspots such as Palo Alto, Boston, New York, continue to dominate, investment funds are increasingly distributed to startups in Central American hubs.
Zajicek also called attention to state-level healthcare programs designed to promote medical research and investment. Founded in 2007, the Texas Cancer Prevention and Research Institute is now a $6 billion fund to invest in cancer research and treatment.
There are similar plans for dementia research. Proposal 14 will amend the state’s constitution to establish the Texas Institute for Dementia Prevention and Research and authorize the state’s auditor-general to allocate $3 billion from the General Fund to invest in the Dementia Prevention and Research Fund to invest in research, prevention and treatment of dementia and dementia-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Paxson’s disease.
AI is the subject of the Medcity Invest Digital Health conference in Dallas. Zajicek noted that some portfolio companies that use AI, such as Lantern Pharma, Rhythm AI and Nexusmd. Zajicek believes that while he emphasizes the need to strike a balance between human touch and automation, Zajicek believes that AI can be particularly useful in making computer interactions less painful and time-consuming, such as image procurement and prior authorization. These AI applications are just the beginning of the type of medical innovation we can expect in the coming years.
