Medica Venture Partners is a globally operating health care and life sciences venture capital fund investing in Israel, Europe and the United States providing equity financing, management assistance and expertise to early stage startups and
seed stage companies in all areas of health care and life science technologies; from medical devices to pharmaceuticals, biotech and genomics. Medica co-invests with some of the top health care funds in the world and has an extensive and unique operational base and infrastructure in Israel. SNNLive spoke to one of Medica’s General Partners, Dr. Pennina Safer, at the 2012 BioInvest Israel Conference in Haifa.
Dr. Safer joined Medica in 2002, bringing extensive biotech industry experience and relationships from both the U.S. and Israel. Prior to joining Medica, Dr. Safer was at Concord Ventures, where she supported the fund’s entry into biotechnology investing.
In this interview, Dr, Safer talks about a panel discussion about VCs in which she had participated earlier. “A lot of companies are very frustrated by the VCs. They’re not getting funding from the VCs, the VCs—especially in Israel, unfortunately—have not really raised new funds. If you look at a lot of the deals that are getting done, they’re getting done by what I would call “alternative investors”; angels, family offices, other kinds of financial structures. And that’s not a bad thing because those are the guys who are funding the early-stage deals.”
She also talks about what she looks for in a company to invest in. “It sounds very trite, but you look for the people, because no matter what the company is on the day you invest in it, it’s going to morph into something different along the way, and you’re looking for people you can [make] the journey with.” To learn more about Dr, Safer and about Medica, visit their website. SNNLive welcomes Dr. Pennina Safer Medica Venture Partners.
