VCs Back Healthcare Startups Whose Diseases They Know
If they or a friend or family member have had a medical problem that you help solve, your chance of getting funding may improve, according to a video made recently by the National Venture Capital Association. This was not the point of the video -- the NVCA made it to highlight innovation created by venture capitalists in light of the threatened regulation of their funds by Congress. But VCs' experience with healthcare problems does influence their funding decisions, according to what they said on-screen. Kate Mitchell of Scale VP, for example, backed a company that made catheters to zip-close vericose veins because her family has a history of diabetes. "The fact that we took something that was a nutty professor idea and made it accessible to my mother and her friends, and are really solving a problem out there, is pretty exciting," she said.
