Gotta Have vs. Nice to Have: Words from a Leading MedTech VC

Versant Ventures' Ross Jaffe

In a week of more than 100 meetings with clients, VCs, portfolio managers and journalists at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, we had a chance to catch up with Versant Ventures’ Ross Jaffe. One of the founders of Versant in 1999, Ross specializes in early stage investing in medical device companies.

As we chatted about companies with which we both work, we turned the discussion to what executives who are looking for VC funding for their medtech businesses should think about at the start of a challenging year. As Ross pointed out, executives are facing a double whammy: How do they deal with the current financial markets? And what can they expect in terms of the incoming administration’s healthcare reform? Both questions are top-of-mind among company executives and VCs alike.

To Ross and his Versant partners, companies must justify — now more than ever — why their products are mission critical to healthcare.  This means there must be compelling reasons for the companies’ technologies.  Long gone are the days of build it and they — the users of the technologies — will come. 

Ross said he’s staying away from companies whose products would be viewed as nice to have by doctors and aiming for companies whose products will be critical to making the practice of medicine more cost-effective.  These are the “gotta haves” for him.

Along with compelling reasons for the technologies, Ross wants to see bodies of clinical data that demonstrate the technologies work. Don’t have this today?  Go and get it or face a challenging road to securing funding. 

And what about the companies that Ross has already funded? Be capital efficient. Remain visible. Demonstrate that you are honing your focus.  Visibility and focus lend themselves to our work at Russo Partners as healthcare communicators.  As Ross noted, good PR is critical for medtech companies as long as it, too, is focused on supporting current business initiatives. 

We expect to see a lot more of Ross and Versant Ventures as Russo Partners moves ahead with extensive medtech PR programs.

More on Versant Ventures’ Ross Jaffe:

Ross brings significant clinical insight and venture capital experience to Versant’s investing efforts. Ross co-founded Versant Ventures in 1999 after spending nine years at Brentwood Venture Capital where, as a general partner, he led investments in medical devices, drug delivery, and healthcare information systems companies.

Ross is a board-certified internist, having completed his residency training in Internal Medicine/Primary Care at the University of California, San Francisco, where he remained a part-time attending physician until 1995. Before and during medical school, he was an Analyst for Lewin and Associates, a healthcare consulting firm, and a Research Associate at Dartmouth Medical School.

Ross has served as a director of St. Francis Medical Technologies (sold), Therasense (sold), Novacept (sold), Micro Interventional Systems (sold), Aradigm (public), Webster Laboratories (sold), Atrionix (sold), and Pro•Duct Health (sold). He currently serves on the boards of Ablation Frontiers, Acclarent, Calypso Medical Technologies, ICS, Insulet (NASDAQ: PODD), Portaero and Vital Therapies. He is also a director of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC) and a member of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) Medical Industry Group. Ross earned his BA in Policy Studies from Dartmouth in 1980, his MD from Johns Hopkins in 1985, and his MBA from Stanford in 1990.