Long River Ventures rebrands as LRVHealth, launches $100m fund

Venture capital group Long River Ventures said today it is rebranding under the moniker LRVHealth and that it launched an early-stage digital health, medical device and diagnostics venture platform with a backing of $100 million in venture capital from its LRV IV investment fund.

The venture platform is joined by more than 20 “well-known healthcare insiders and thought-leaders,” eight national healthcare systems and the Innovation Institute, LRV Health said.

“LRVHealth has emerged as the premier early-stage healthcare venture capital firm. When the Innovation Institute began looking for a partner to launch a fund with, we evaluated several potential suitors and concluded that LRVHealth was the best fit. Our intent was to be more than a passive limited partner investor, instead actively participating in the fund with a seasoned team. The Innovation Institute infrastructure will assist in vetting investment opportunities, piloting solutions and helping to grow early-stage companies. We believe the Institute’s business model – highly focused on innovation and growth – brings benefits to the LRV IV Fund that other early-stage funds don’t have. This type of for-profit and non-profit collaboration will be a major catalyst to the transformation already underway across the nation’s healthcare industry,” Innovation Institute prez & CEO Joe Randolph said in prepared remarks.

The newly formed LRVHealth platform is designed for identifying, creating and investing in “disruptive, early-stage companies” in fields including healthcare IT, healthcare technology enabled services, devices and diagnostics, according to a press release.

The LRVHealth platform looks to connect healthcare operators and investors with providers, payers, vendors and industry executives. The investment team at LRVHealth is being lead by Will Cowen, Tripp Peake and Keith Figlioli.

“The healthcare sector is traditionally known for being conservative or risk averse, but the rise of healthcare consumerism and the flood of related data is forcing us into a phase of disruption not seen in our lifetimes. Clinicians are rapidly and successfully embracing new care delivery models, administrators are adopting new perspectives on value and risk, CIOs are demanding system interoperability and data sharing, provider networks are revaluating the scope and scale of their operations and boards and CEOs across the sector are focusing on innovation as a top tier issue,” LRVHealth general partner Will Cowen said in a press release.

LRVHealth touted that their roster of executive advisors includes Acelity CEO R. Andrew Eckert, xG Health Solutions chair Dr. Glenn Steele, former Premier Inc senior VP of corp. dev. and strategy Terry Linn and Mass eHealth Collaborative prez & CEO Micky Tripathi.

“Having been on the forefront of many innovation cycles in healthcare and helping to define new markets, it is critical for our healthcare systems to constantly test and build net new innovations within their systems and in collaboration across multiple systems. LRVHealth and its partners are solely focused on driving innovation across digital health to help transform our nation’s healthcare system and improve patient outcomes and care – a mission that directly supports a key focus of my career. It’s an honor to be an advisor and help the team build great companies that can be financially successful and also empower the healthcare ecosystem to better accomplish its mission for people, patients and supporting communities,” xG Health Solutions chair Dr. Glenn Steele said in a prepared statement.

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