Olympus Corporation has committed $150m to a new venture capital (VC) fund, aiming to deploy the capital to promising medtech startups in the gastrointestinal (GI), urology, and respiratory sectors.
Olympus Innovation Ventures’ (OIV) Fund II is being established by OIV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Olympus Corporation of the Americas. The fund aims to generate a pipeline of M&A opportunities, partnerships, and valuable market insights.
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OIV Fund II is positioned as a ‘stage-agnostic’ VC fund that aims to prioritise early to growth-stage companies globally with therapeutic solutions for targeted medical specialities. Olympus highlighted that OIV will also continue assisting its existing portfolio companies that were added via its first VC fund, which was launched in 2021.
The inaugural fund, called OIV Fund I, had a capital allocation of $50m and has invested in nine medtech startups, including US-based molecular imaging agent developer On Target Laboratories and Spain-based non-invasive colorectal cancer test developer Universal Diagnostics.
Olympus’s chief strategy officer and OIV Investment Committee chair Gabriela Kaynor commented: “With an additional commitment to corporate venture capital, we will continue to make investments in startup teams who are building unique solutions in endoscopy-enabled care.”
Corporate VC specialist Cerity Partners Ventures will continue to help manage OIV’s second fund, having partnered with the VC arm since its first fund’s launch.
Cerity partner Kindra Tatarsky said: “The Cerity Partners Ventures team is excited to continue working with Olympus, leveraging our collective technical strengths, industry relationships, and subject matter expertise to fund and support leading entrepreneurs.
“This fund will build on Olympus Innovation Ventures’ mission to be the partner of choice for innovators, creating a competitive advantage for their startups.”
In confluence with its fresh focus on GI startup investment via OIV, Olympus is aiming to carve out its own position in the market. In July, Olympus founded a new endoluminal robotics startup named Swan EndoSurgical Robotics alongside private equity firm Revival Healthcare Capital.
Swan will focus on developing an endoluminal surgical robotics platform for treating lesions or tumours in the GI tract, with the company stating that Swan aims to develop a system that improves minimally invasive options for treatments such as cancer resection by overcoming the “ergonomic limitations” of manual endoscopy.
