BCBusiness

W hen Brenda Irwin was invited by a friend to a Vancouver pitch event in the summer of 2013, she had no intention of investing in anything. The native of Mount Elgin, Ontario, had only left her job with Business Develop- ment Bank of Canada ( BDC) 18 months prior, and she didn't have a lot of money to toss around. But as a fanatical runner, cyclist and triathlete, she was drawn to the setup: a 50-kilometre bike ride with Olympic gold triathlete Simon WhitŠeld, followed by a pitch for the company WhitŠeld was involved in. Irwin—who worked as a middle school science teacher in Toronto before pursuing an MBA at UBC and joining BDC Venture Capital in 1999—was trying to Šgure out her next career move. She knew she wanted to focus on the sci- ences, from the venture capitalist's perspective, and was particularly interested in the world of preventative health management. But it was meeting WhitŠeld that catalyzed the new direc- tion. "I told him: 'With my back- ground investing in health, and your background in sport and high-performance…'—it just felt like the right Št to test my thesis about what was happening with sport migrating into medical." Within the year, the two had gone into business together— forming an angel group, Relentless Pursuit Partners, that has invested in everything from wearable tech for sports coaches (a device measuring up to 15 performance metrics for more than 30 athletes simul- taneously) to a 3D bioprinting platform developed at UBC. "In that process of working with Simon, the Relentless brand was quickly becoming associ- ated with anything to do with health and sport and Štness that was outside of the box of what everybody else was doing." In February 2018, Irwin launched the Relentless Ven- ture Fund—an early-stage VC vehicle that promises to deliver "measurable social impact" by investing in technologies that optimize health and access to health care. WhitŠeld isn't actively involved in the man- agement of this fund, serving instead as an adviser; Irwin has brought on her former boss Denis Ho (who had been managing director of BDC Venture Capital's life sciences team) as her venture partner, with Vancity as their lead insti- tutional investor. The need for the fund was clear, Irwin says: "I did not see anybody doing what we were doing in the Canadian market— and very few in the U.S. that are intentionally focusing on pre- vention and proactive health management." Relentless's Šrst VC investment, in May 2018, was part of a US$26-million round in Vancouver-based medical data Šrm Canary Medical—money that will allow Canary to develop its "smart" artiŠcial knee implant. What was once a small niche within the health sector is grow- ing worldwide. In Japan, which has one of the most rapidly aging populations on Earth (one third of its nearly 127 million people will be over 65 by 2025), eldercare has become a boon to the economy—spurring innova- tion in everything from ultra- sonic bladder sensors to a VR app used to rehabilitate stroke victims. Of the 92 Japanese startups seeking valuations at US$1 billion or more, accord- ing to a January Wall Street Journal story, 25 are focused on health care. North America—slow in the race to fund digital health—is just now starting to turn the corner. Irwin notes that wear- able tech pioneer Garmin recently partnered with the University of Kansas Medical Center to predict conditions like atrial Šbrillation and sleep apnea, while Fitbit last year invested in Sano, a biometric wearable sensor that monitors blood sugar levels. "There's so much data there—and now we're tran- sitioning to the idea that this data has to go somewhere," Irwin says. "That there has to be a way people start using it to answer the 'So what?' beyond a great ride." ¨ The Pursuit of Healthiness For venture capitalist Brenda Irwin, smart technoloy can do much more than just count our steps—it can save our lives by Matt O'Grady I T ' S A G O OD T H I NG ( quality time ) Well Financed Since 2011, annual U.S. venture funding for digital health has grown almost eight- fold, to US$8.1 billion, while the average deal size has nearly doubled 2 1 3 4 5 6 7 $8 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 AVERAGE DEAL SIZE $12.0m $10.5m $10.7m $14.2m $14.7m $13.6m $15.9m $21.9m TOTAL VENTURE FUNDING ($ BILLIONS) 62 BCBUSINESS APRIL 2019 SOURCE: ROCK HEALTH. ONLY INCLUDES DEALS GREATER THAN US$2 MILLION

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