Several current and former health system leaders are advising the new SemCap Health fund that aims to invest $400 million in health tech companies.
The fund is led by executive chair and partner Ralph Muller, the former CEO of Philadelphia-based University of Pennsylvania Health System and former president of University of Chicago Medicine.
"Healthcare companies that successfully leverage new technologies can create transformative impact — but only if they are able to navigate the extremely complex U.S. healthcare system," Mr. Muller said in a Nov. 3 SemCap news release. "Leading two of our nation's top-ranked academic health systems over the past three decades affords me a unique view into the healthcare industry, and with that I can say I've never seen a more compelling time to invest. The opportunity to improve care quality and reduce inefficiencies will only increase in today's turbulent economy."
SemCap Health plans to invest $400 million in high-growth firms with goals of improving healthcare cost efficiency, quality and access through the use of technology, Philadelphia Business Journal reported Nov. 10. In an early investment, it led a $25 million funding round for behavioral health software company NeuroFlow.
SemCap Health managing partner Victor Kats is the former managing director of Ascension Ventures, the venture capital arm of St. Louis-based Ascension.
The fund's operating advisers include Elizabeth Concordia, president and CEO of Aurora, Colo.-based UCHealth; Ray Dorsey, MD, a professor of neurology at University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical Center; Mark Laret, the former president and CEO of San Francisco-based UCSF Health; Raina Merchant, MD, vice president and chief transformation officer of University of Pennsylvania Health System; and Craig Samitt, MD, former CEO of Dean Health System (now part of St. Louis-based SSM Health).