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Digitalis Ventures, Mars Team Up on New Pet Health Venture Fund
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By Brian Gormley, WSJ Pro
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Good day. Digitalis Ventures, which last year closed a $300 million healthcare fund, has raised a separate $300 million pool to invest in pet health through a collaboration with food and pet-care company Mars.
Digitalis in 2018 formed a collaboration with Mars to invest in early-stage pet-care companies. Mars, whose brands include M&M’s candies and Whiskas cat food, provided all of the capital, said Digitalis founder and Managing Partner Geoffrey Smith.
The goal was to marry Mars’ strategic and Digitalis’ investment expertise, and to tap into what they saw as a relatively untapped venture market, he said. Digitalis, founded in 2016, invests in a range of life sciences and healthtech startups.
The $100 million first fund backed startups including PetMedix, a developer of therapeutic antibodies for pets that was recently acquired by animal-health company Zoetis.
The initial pool targeted early-stage companies. This larger vehicle will back early-stage startups but will also target later-stage companies that are emerging as the pet-health market has matured, said Smith. Sixty-two percent of Americans own a pet, according to the Pew Research Center.
Smith said he initially had some trepidation that a company of Mars’ scale would be able to move with the speed and agility needed in venture capital. But Digitalis has found Mars to be an excellent partner whose expertise has been valuable for evaluating deals and assisting portfolio companies, he said.
And now on to the news...
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The Food and Drug Administration has left lab companies with less certainty about future regulation, complicating investment and product-development decisions, some observers say. PHOTO: JACQUELYN MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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FDA plans increased oversight of lab tests. A proposed regulatory shift has injected uncertainty into the laboratory-testing market just as startups are advancing an array of tests to detect diseases sooner and personalize treatments. Startups seizing advances in fields such as genomics and artificial intelligence are designing laboratory-developed tests to spot cancer and other illnesses before symptoms arise and to identify optimal therapies.
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Lab-developed tests are created and carried out in a single lab. Labs perform these tests on blood or other specimens shipped to them. Most genetic tests, for example, are lab-developed tests.
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The Food and Drug Administration says it historically has exercised its discretion not to regulate such tests.
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That would change under a proposal the FDA issued Friday. The agency, citing concerns about the efficacy of lab-developed tests, said it plans to regulate these diagnostics.
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America’s Food Giants Confront the Ozempic Era
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You just started taking Ozempic. Will you still crave that bag of potato chips?
Big food companies and investors are watching as Ozempic and other similar weight-loss drugs flow to millions of people, upending America’s diet industry and raising new questions about how consumers will eat.
Executives at food manufacturers from Campbell Soup to Conagra Brands said they are fielding questions from investors about the drugs’ potential impact, as internal teams start to assess consumer behavior and brainstorm ways to respond.
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Quantum Dot Researchers Win Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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A trio of scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for work on quantum dots, tiny particles that add color to screens and medical procedures. The Nobel committee said Wednesday that Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov won the chemistry prize for research on the dots, semiconductor particles just a few nanometers in size. They have been integrated into TV screens and help guide surgeons as they remove tumor tissue. Researchers hope quantum dots can eventually help develop flexible electronics, thinner solar cells and encrypted communication.
More:
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Bill Gates-Backed Startup Launches AI Chatbot for Personalized Movie, Book Picks
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Billionaire entrepreneur Bill Gates declared in March that “the Age of AI has begun.” At least one of his investments is betting on the ways AI will help people choose their entertainment.
Likewise, an early-stage startup backed by Gates’s private office, is launching a chatbot Thursday that offers users personalized recommendations for books, movies, TV shows and podcasts. The chatbot, called Pix, runs on OpenAI’s natural-language processing technology and will learn users’ preferences over time. It will be free to users.
The Gates-backed startup plans to use its 600 million consumer data points to distinguish its media-recommendation platform from the one-size-fits-all chatbots that are already available. Unlike the recommendation software available within streaming services, Pix will suggest content across platforms to users who text, email or ask it questions via its app.
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Funds
Digital health-focused 7wireVentures closed a growth and opportunity fund with $217 million in commitments. To date, the Chicago-based firm has made three investments through the new fund.
People
Flagship Pioneering said John Lepore will join the firm as CEO-partner, and will also join ProFound Therapeutics as CEO. He was previously at GSK.
Virtual clinical supervision platform Motivo appointed Jon Stout as chief business officer. He was most recently a venture partner at Optum Ventures.
Laudio, a provider of operations technology for frontline healthcare managers, named Emma Smith as the company's first chief marketing officer. She was most recently chief communications officer at Linus Health. In June, Laudio said it raised a $13 million Series B round led by Define Ventures.
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Microsure, a robot-assisted microsurgery startup based in The Netherlands, landed a €38 million investment from kineo finance, Invest-NL and others.
Akura Medical, a Los Gatos, Calif.-based startup focused on addressing venous thromboembolism, closed a $35 million Series B round from investors including Unorthodox Ventures.
Plenful, a San Francisco-based workflow automation platform streamlining pharmacy and healthcare operations, picked up a $9 million investment led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
Orakl Oncology, a France-based precision oncology startup, snagged a €3 million investment led by Speedinvest.
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Healthcare workers picketed at Kaiser Permanente’s Los Angeles Medical Center on Wednesday. PHOTO: ZAYDEE SANCHEZ FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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