Back in March we reported that major changes were coming to Oak Investment Partners, the bi-coastal venture capital giant that was in the midst of investing its thirteenth fund. Namely, the firm’s healthcare and financial tech investors would raise their own dedicated fund, while Oak’s IT investors would do the same. Both would continue managing out the existing portfolio, but there wouldn’t be shared back-office services or anymore generalist funds going forward.
The first of those efforts, called Oak HC/FT Partners, recently held a final close on $500 million. The healthcare focus will be on North American providers of tech-enabled services, rather than pharma or medical devices, while the fin-tech focus could include investments in Europe (there is a current effort to add one London-based staffer).
This fundraise is notable for a couple of reasons. First, Oak had struggled mightily to raise its most recent fund, closing on less than $800 million of its $1.5 billion target. And, of that final amount, just around 25% was allocated to healthcare and financial tech. So this effectively represents more than a 2x increase in commitments. Second, two of Oak HC/FT’s three general partners are women, making it the largest fund ever raised by a female-majority VC firm (with the arguable exception of KPCB’s Digital Growth Fund, which is led primarily by Mary Meeker).
“For us there is a lot of crossover between healthcare and financial services,” explains partner Annie Lamont, whose past deals have included Athenahealth (ATHN), Castlight (CSLT), BenefitFocus (BNFT) and NetSpend (acquired by Total System Services for $1.3 billion). “They are both highly-regulated industries in a massive convergence, when you think about how big a piece of healthcare now involves things like consumer payments and price transparency.”
Lamont’s fellow partners are Andrew Adams, who focuses on fin-tech, and Tricia Kemp, a healthcare investor who previously was a venture partner with Oak. Other fulltime team members include venture partners Nancy Brown (ex-Athenahealth and McKesson), Anil Aggarwal (ex-CEO of TxVia) and Jonathan Weiner (former head of biz dev for Google Wallet).
The Connecticut-based firm has not yet done its first deal, but expects to do so shortly.
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