NLC successfully closes the new Stepping Stone Fund to finance 40 promising new HealthTech ventures

Today, NLC closed the first round of the new NLC Stepping Stone Fund. NLC - the European HealthTech Venture Builder - was founded in 2015 based on the urgency that due to market complexities and fragmentation, 95% of science-based health tech inventions never reach the patient. However, bringing them to the market would be life-changing for many patients. This disruptive new Stepping Stone Fund will play a pivotal role in bridging the early-stage ‘valley of death’ that stops many promising innovations from being successful. In this way the fund will contribute further to NLC’s goal of advancing health for all. Currently closing at over €9M, the Fund will hold a final closing of up to €12.5M in early 2021.

Individual investors are often struggling to benefit from the high investment multiples and large upside potential of the early-stage investment landscape. NLC has developed a unique venture building model – characterized by ‘entrepreneurship at scale’ – allowing them to leverage their network and expertise to systematically advance and de-risk more innovative ventures than any other player in the space.

NLC has founded over 60 ventures to date and has raised more than €50M for both its venture building platform and portfolio, whilst successfully launching the first six technologies on the market which aid patients every single day.

The new Stepping Stone Fund gets in at the ground floor by providing pre-seed investments to approximately 40 new ventures – originating from universities, academic hospitals and corporates across Europe – whilst offering investors the opportunity to spread their investment over a large and diversified portfolio of HealthTech startups, all built and supported by NLC.

Investor base

A diverse and strategic investor base has joined NLC’s mission in bringing these ventures to life. Investors in the Stepping Stone Fund include several strategic corporate investors (including Philips), reputed Family Offices and Impact Investors, well-known HealthTech entrepreneurs, as well as five partnerships of medical specialists in the Netherlands (‘Medisch Specialistische Bedrijven’).

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