Optum Announces $250 Million Fund to Invest in Next Generation of Health Care Innovation
November 28 2017 - 4:15PM
Business Wire
Optum Ventures to invest in and provide
guidance to startups that apply information and progressive new
technologies and approaches to solve health care’s most pressing
challenges
Optum, the health services business of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:
UNH), announced today the creation of Optum Ventures, a $250
million venture fund focused on investing in startup and
early-stage companies whose innovations will help advance the
health care system.
Optum Ventures invests in digital health companies that use data
and insights to help improve consumers’ access to health care
services and how care is delivered and paid for, and that make the
health care system more reliable and easier to navigate.
Entrepreneurs working with Optum Ventures gain more than capital
investment. They gain strategic guidance to support development and
growth from a vast network of experts and relationships. Optum’s
unparalleled health care assets and analytics capabilities provide
a unique proving ground to research, test and innovate new
solutions in collaboration with Optum’s broad and long-standing
relationships and knowledge of how health care systems work and
perform.
By leveraging Optum’s health care market expertise and
experience, Optum Ventures and the companies it invests in will be
able to bring solutions to market more quickly and scale faster,
helping build a health care system that is more transparent,
personalized, precise and consumer-focused.
“Optum Ventures is uniquely positioned to help develop and grow
startups and early-stage companies through capital investment,
Optum’s decades of experience in health care, and our access to the
health care marketplace,” said Larry Renfro, CEO of Optum and
Managing Partner of Optum Ventures. “Optum Ventures will be the
partner of choice for companies developing innovations that help
make health care work better for everyone.”
The initial investments of Optum Ventures include:
- Apervita, whose cloud-based
platform reduces the time it takes to build and deploy analytic
applications that enable health care professionals to deliver
better care, and enterprises to gain stronger insights.
- Buoy Health, which has developed
an artificial intelligence-powered digital health assistant that
helps patients better understand their symptoms and get advice on
where to go and what to do next.
- Mindstrong Health, whose
technology uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to
assess a patient’s smartphone interactions to help diagnose and
treat neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders such as
depression, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder.
- SHYFT Analytics, which provides
a cloud-based data and analytics platform for life sciences
companies, enabling them to reduce cost and risk while increasing
clinical and commercial performance, with a focus on oncology,
cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other specialty and rare
disorders.
Optum Ventures is funded by Optum and will operate independently
under the leadership of its Partners, A.G. Breitenstein and
Virginia McFerran. Together, Breitenstein and McFerran have years
of experience in starting, advising and leading innovative health
care enterprises. The fund will have offices in Boston,
Massachusetts and Menlo Park, California.
For more information, visit www.optumventures.com.
About OptumOptum is a leading information and
technology-enabled health services business dedicated to helping
make the health system work better for everyone. With more than
133,000 people worldwide, Optum delivers intelligent, integrated
solutions that help to modernize the health system and improve
overall population health. Optum is part of UnitedHealth Group
(NYSE:UNH). For more information, visit www.optum.com.
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OptumMatt Stearns, 202-276-0085matt.stearns@optum.com
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