What the vital signs IP Group looks for in a portfolio company
IP Group isn’t your typical investor. Having supported the commercialisation of novel technologies through spin-out companies since 2001, it has fine-tuned a unique approach to building outstanding businesses that goes above and beyond the provision of 'just capital'. It focuses on providing companies with access to business building expertise, networks, recruitment and business support.
In this five part blog series, Simon Graindorge, Experienced Life Science Investor at IP Group plc, shares why Oxehealth caught his eye.
The technology is, of course, always the starting point and the more disruptive and world-changing the better. IP Group specialises in finding disruptive technologies developed in universities and helps transform them into companies that have the capacity to 'change the world'. We provide capital early and get very hands-on with our portfolio companies, so we get to know them very well.
We see a lot of really neat technologies and breakthroughs but we also know and appreciate how long and tough the road is to realising those and making a success of them. So with this in mind I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the 'vital signs' we look for in a portfolio company and what caught our eye with Oxehealth.
Over the coming weeks I'll be covering what start-ups need in terms of blood pressure, respiratory and oxygen saturation, but firstly let's look at the company heart.
Vital sign 1. Heart rate Brilliant science
At the very centre, you have to start with a 'beating heart'. The technology has to stack up and be a genuine breakthrough, not just an incremental change. It has to be credible and have some really good data. And what
could be more disruptive in vital sign monitoring than doing away with proprietary hardware and measuring the vital signs from a distance using a digital camera? Oxecam? was developed by one of the world's leading biomedical engineers (Prof. Lionel Tarassenko), working at one of the world's leading universities, Oxford, which has topped the world rankings for medicine for three years in a row, and backed up with clinical trial data that shows it is accurate and works.
Join Simon next week as he empathises the fact that there's no 'I' in team, and why this is so crucial in a successful start-up.
If you have any questions about the science behind Oxecam? contact the team here.
