Venture capital firm Nina Capital has launched a €50m fund to invest in health technology startups worldwide. The new fund, its third to date, will focus on supporting founders developing innovative solutions aimed at improving healthcare systems.
The third fund from Nina Capital – Fund III – aims to build a new portfolio of investments for Nina Capital across Europe, North America, Israel, and, for the first time, Australia. From pre-seed to Series A, the fund will write initial checks ranging from €250,000 to €1.5m, with reserves to support portfolio companies through follow-on funding.
The fund has been contributed to from limited partners such as Boston-based wealth management firm Seven Two Partners, professional family offices, foundations, corporations, and experienced high-net-worth individuals across Europe and the United States.
Nina Capital has already made its first Fund III investment in Sonar Mental Health – a US-based mental health platform serving school districts nationwide that assists students through a combination of AI and human-led support. The fund also has two more investments in the pipeline for early 2025.
Marta-Gaia Zanchi, founder and managing partner of Nina Capital, spoke to Health Tech World to tell us more.
Can you tell us about the background of the fund and its mission?
Nina Capital’s mission has never wavered from the start. Our goal is to improve healthcare, full stop. We achieve this by investing in innovative early-stage companies that develop technology-driven solutions to address specific needs within the healthcare industry. This mission has been our guiding North Star from the very beginning.
We launched our first fund, which was relatively small at €18m, to test the concept, build a team, and establish our investment practice. With the second fund, we expanded as a fully formed team, raising €43m and continuing to invest with the same strategic focus. Our focus remains on healthcare technology, broad geographical diversity, and a commitment to meaningful impact.
Now with our third fund, we are building on our strengths, following the same strategy with a consolidated team, and creating a brand-new portfolio of approximately 25 investments.
To date, we have made over 50 investments. There were 23 in the first fund and more than 25 in the second. We have already made our first investment from the third fund. On a broader scale, our geographical reach is not just reflected in our portfolio. It is also embedded in our DNA. Although our entire team is based in Barcelona, which is a fantastic place to live, we are proud to represent 12 different nationalities within a team of just 10 people.
Can you tell us about the Fund’s first investment?
Sonar Mental Health is an AI-powered mental health platform specifically designed to support young people and schoolchildren. The adolescent mental health crisis is worsening and is a global issue. While the company is focused on the United States, the innovation they are developing is highly applicable worldwide.
What makes them unique is their targeted approach, addressing the problem as it is experienced by children in school. The company has created preventive mental health support systems designed to engage students. They sell directly to school districts, which then implement the system across different schools in the United States.
The platform includes a digital wellbeing companion called Sonny, which interacts with students via text messages, providing support when needed. Over time, this AI companion learns to recognise when a student may require additional mental health assistance and connects them with trained counsellors who can provide tailored interventions.
How do you decide where to allocate funds and select the companies for investment?
It all starts with our mission. Ultimately, we want to be measured by our success in improving healthcare. Our investment approach focuses on identifying the most pressing and timely needs in the healthcare industry. Our team has diverse backgrounds, from engineering and biomedical sciences to pharma and biotech. We use this expertise, along with our network, to analyse the biggest challenges in healthcare today. There are many, so we certainly have our work cut out for us.
For a long time, we have studied the systemic problems in healthcare and conducted research to understand them. Right now, we are particularly focused on adolescent mental health, but we are also looking at challenges in interoperability, manufacturing, and supply chains. This knowledge equips us to assess the solutions that founders present to us and determine whether they address a truly compelling need.
Do you mainly look at companies utilising AI, or do you look in other areas of technological innovation as well? And how do you see these technologies, whether it’s AI or digital products, sort of shaping the future of healthcare?
When it comes to healthcare technology, our primary focus is healthcare information technology. Information technology is a broad field, but broadly speaking, it leverages advances in data and computing to drive change. We invest in companies that create new data sources by developing sensors, analyse existing data, facilitate data movement, and present information in innovative ways to generate insights. We also support businesses bringing digitalisation to industries that have traditionally relied heavily on paper. These types of transformations are all enabled by information technology, and this has remained a core focus for our firm.
That said, technology itself is not the sole driver of our investment decisions. What excites us is the potential to improve the healthcare system. However, we use technology as a filter to determine whether we are the right investors for a particular opportunity. AI is now everywhere, and if you look at our portfolio today, you will find that at least two-thirds of our companies leverage artificial intelligence and deep learning to ensure their technology effectively addresses real needs.
We expect this trend to continue. We are particularly interested in automation, as well as solutions that identify patterns, not only in diseases but also in the operational cadence of the industry. This mirrors the transformation seen in the automotive sector, where efficiency was dramatically improved through data and computational advances. In healthcare, these innovations are crucial for making the industry more rational, more efficient, and better able to optimise its limited resources, including human resources.
Will you be focusing on particular areas of healthcare?
We are focusing on certain underserved populations where there is a rising prevalence of disease, yet the healthcare system is not equipped to provide the necessary level of care. Sonar Mental Health is a great example of this.
Children in schools represent a highly vulnerable population, facing a growing mental health crisis, while the current system is unable to respond effectively to this increasing demand. The question, then, is how we can leverage technology to deliver care where it is most needed, in the most preventative and efficient way possible, mobilising resources as required.
This is a clear example in the context of paediatric mental health, but there are many others. There are populations that do not traditionally engage with the healthcare system until it is too late. If we can provide them with the right level of support where they are—whether in their homes or communities—we can create a significant downstream impact. By reducing the burden on the healthcare system for acute interventions, we can shift towards earlier, lower-cost interventions that have a much greater long-term effect.
Beyond this, we are also looking at the need to optimise and modernise many of the traditional businesses within healthcare. Hospitals, for example, need technology to make the best use of their resources, particularly their human workforce. Technology can serve as a companion to clinicians, relieving nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals of low-skill, repetitive tasks that do not require direct patient interaction.
While there will always be a need for human empathy and connection in healthcare, many administrative and operational tasks can be effectively handled by technology, freeing up professionals to focus on patient care.
This need for rationalisation through technology extends beyond hospitals. Pharmaceutical companies must optimise manufacturing, logistics, and clinical trial processes. Small biotech firms are leveraging computational advances to improve the success rates of bringing new therapeutics to market. Pharmacies, too, require technological solutions to reach elderly patients at home, ensuring they receive and manage their medications effectively.
Across the entire healthcare ecosystem, industry participants are on the brink of transformation, enabled by technology, and we are actively pursuing these market opportunities.
Many early-stage healthtech startups struggle with regulatory complexity and long adoption cycles. How does Nina Capital support its portfolio companies in overcoming these barriers?
Since the 1976 Medical Device Amendments, the industry has spent over 50 years navigating an ever-evolving regulatory framework. I have a particular interest in this challenge, having worked in regulatory affairs both as a researcher at university and briefly with my students at the Food and Drug Administration’s Centre for Devices and Radiological Health.
Regulation extends far beyond medical devices, encompassing the ability to determine whether a product meets the necessary safety and effectiveness standards for specific clinical uses. It is deeply embedded in the industry, and for good reason—many regulations were introduced in response to serious public health crises, such as the Dalkon Shield disaster and other tragic events.
However, we do not view regulation as a burden or a negative constraint on the industry. Instead, we see it as something that can be understood, engaged with, and leveraged to create differentiation, competitive advantage, and ultimately, sustainable and lasting solutions for market needs.
We embrace the challenge, staying close to the industry by actively studying policy changes, which have always been and will continue to be a defining factor in healthcare. We also support our founders by connecting them with specialised resources, whether consultants we have previously worked with or experts within our advisory group who can offer strategic advice and guidance.
Ultimately, success in this space requires an open-minded approach and a strong alignment between investors and founders.
We are excited by opportunities where there is both strong chemistry and a shared vision to solve critical market needs in a way that is safe, effective, and beneficial to the healthcare system as a whole. Understanding regulations and applying them at the right time is key to achieving that goal.
Looking ahead, what concerns do you think could challenge health-tech investors and startups in 2025, and how should the industry prepare for them?
There have certainly been many proposed changes to healthcare policy. The new presidency may bring additional reforms and accelerate the pace of healthcare technology development in 2025. These issues are currently under the spotlight, for obvious reasons, but they have always been present.
Just last year, new guidance was introduced on AI in drug development, focusing on the risks posed by emerging technologies. There have also been proposals for new regulations on the use of computational advances in diagnosing conditions, particularly regarding how we can ensure the efficacy of these algorithms in populations different from those they were originally trained on.
Policy changes are an inherent characteristic of this industry. The new presidency has introduced an additional level of uncertainty about what lies ahead this year. To prepare for these changes, we are closely following the latest publications from regulators, engaging with the clinical community, and maintaining dialogue with executives leading various sectors.
Many of these individuals sit on our advisory board, work as venture partners, or are valued industry representatives worldwide. These ongoing conversations help us anticipate the outlook for healthcare policy in 2025.
Most likely, the changes that come into effect will be less dramatic than the headlines suggest. However, we are closely monitoring current regulatory discussions, and in three to six months, we should have a clearer picture of which proposed measures will be implemented. On one hand, I anticipate some deregulation, particularly concerning AI.
Some of the expected regulatory guidance for AI as an industry may be less extensive than initially anticipated. On the other hand, I do not foresee any relaxation of regulatory efforts focused on medical and public health issues, as protecting public health remains a key priority.
Ultimately, this may result in a balanced outcome for the healthcare industry. As we have done for decades, we will continue navigating these changes, recognising that the transformation of healthcare policy tends to occur over a much longer timescale than many anticipate.
