1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Frank Malek of Impacteo (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: We have a lot of activity right now in Europe. Recently in the last Fall, we announced a partnership with EIT Health. These are all healthcare IT companies. That’s probably aligned with your investment thesis. How about a few examples of deals that you have invested in and a little bit of a commentary on what is it in those deals that spoke to you? At what stage did you encounter them? How did you encounter them and why did they speak to you?

Frank Malek: Let me start with the trends that we’re seeing because we are looking for trends where we see opportunity. As I mentioned earlier, we love healthcare. We have had several exits around healthcare. The trend that we’re seeing right now is around AI and machine learning (ML). For example, we like where AI and ML technologies can be applied to healthcare and also to improve customer engagement or workflow automation around clinical trials.

We like some of the technologies that are coming around AI and machine learning and how they’re applied to healthcare and genomics. I’ll use Garden Health as an example. Garden Health is a leading precision oncology company. They help conquer cancer through proprietary blood tests and vast datasets. I do have family members who are dealing with cancer.

On a personal level, I resonated with this. The team that was working on this is really a top-notch team. I have invested in them in the past and have had an exit with them. They really know the space and have great IP. They have a great mission. This is a company that I invested in 2013. Recently they IPO’d. I love the mission and I love the team.

I think data is becoming very pervasive in how we build these companies and solutions. Another company that I’m interested in is around climate change called Global Parametrics. They supply geo-physical data to create financial products. The provide much needed information and financial tools so that communities can respond and recover quickly in the face of disasters. The trend that we’re seeing in our investing is how do you bring machine learning, AI, and Blockchain to solve some of these areas that we’re focused on – education, environment, and healthcare.

Sramana Mitra: Are you chasing unicorns or are you doing smaller deals?

Frank Malek: We’re not chasing unicorns.

Sramana Mitra: We are consistent with the original discussion around smaller exits.

Frank Malek: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: You mentioned all these companies like Sequoia. They are chasing unicorns.

Frank Malek: In Garden Health, we were the seed investor. Sequoia came in A. We invested because we believed in what the company was doing and we believed in the team. It’s not a criteria for us. We are an impact fund. We are looking for both social impact and financial returns because we understand that in order for you to have continued impact, you have to be sustainable.

We’re bringing the VC discipline to impact investing. What’s important for people to understand why we think this is an upcoming trend is when you look at millennials, they do care about where they work, the products that they purchase. Consumers will prefer to work with a sustainable company.

If you look at data, we’ve 49% of millennials versus 13% of baby boomers. There are several trends we are seeing here. We are seeing trends of today’s population caring more about sustainable, impactful investments. Secondly, the emergence of amazing technologies allow us to underpin a lot of these solutions and products that we’re building.

Sramana Mitra: Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 3 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Frank Malek of Impacteo
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