The man running a new $100 million venture fund at UnityPoint Health told us how he plans to pick healthcare startups to invest in

Courtesy of UnityPoint Health.

The health system UnityPoint Health just launched a $100 million venture fund.
Matthew Warrens, managing director of innovation at UnityPoint, spoke with Business Insider about how the fund plans to invest the money.
The venture fund will focus on efforts to improve patient experience, lower medical costs, and provide better care.
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One of the largest health systems in the midwestern US just launched a $100 million venture fund to make investments in healthcare startups.

UnityPoint Health’s venture fund plans to invest in early stage companies in four main areas: digital health, medical devices, therapeutic spaces, and healthcare services. The venture fund will back startups whose technology can be used across the UnityPoint health system, said Matthew Warrens, managing director of innovation at UnityPoint.

The fund has already announced an investment in RxRevu, a company that helps doctors decide which drugs to prescribe to their patients, taking into account information about their medical conditions as well as the cost of the prescriptions. Companies like RxRevu align with the mission of UnityPoint’s venture fund: ensure patients come first by receiving better healthcare access and more affordable care, Warrens said.

"There are a lot of great immersive health opportunities around keeping people healthy," he said. In digital health, he said he’s interested in "tools we can give providers to make their workload or days easier and more efficient"

UnityPoint is a not-for-profit health system that runs 22 hospitals, mainly in Iowa and western Illinois. Last year, the health system generated revenue of about $4.4 billion. UnityPoint said it moved about 5% of its total investment portfolio into the venture fund.

UnityPoint plans to announce more investments in the coming months.

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After working in healthcare for more than 20 years, Warrens said he hasn’t seen enough change in the industry, especially when it comes to the patient experience.

Warrens leads the day-to-day operations of the fund and Kent Lehr, vice president of strategy and business development for UnityPoint, also overseas the the fund’s strategy.

"We have so much more data in healthcare now, but we’re still providing the same experiences and producing the same outcomes," said Warrens.

"In retail and banking, the customer experience has changed vastly," Warrens said. "There’s easier access to services and readily available assistance to aid in an improved experience for the consumer. We’re a decade behind these industries."

There are several young companies Warrens said he’s impressed with for improving the patient experience. He said UnityPoint hasn’t yet invested in these companies, but that they’re examples of the kinds of companies he’d like to invest in.

One is Epharmix, which is a remote monitoring solution that helps care managers get information about patients more quickly.

Another is the online platform SilverCloud which offers over 30 programs to improve mental health and treat chronic health conditions.

In the future, Warrens said he’d like to see patients have more control over their own health records. Warrens said patients should be able to go into an app store and pick the software they want to store their data. He said the healthcare system should become a middleman between the patient and provider.

"Healthcare is still an industry that, to the patient, feels like a black box," said Warrens. "They don’t have access to the day-to-day tools they need or insight into the things that could help their lives."

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