The Cardio Ventures investment strategy is to secure stakes in its companies by participating in the funding at company formation and then investing between $0.5 and $2 million from its own fund over the following 24 to 36 months and on a case-by-case basis, to potentially leverage this early funding with $5 to $20 million from next-stage funding sources.

In order to retain its ability to function as a business accelerator, Cardio Ventures will participate in the formation of just one or two companies per year for the foreseeable future. 

Sector Focus
While it will operate throughout the cardiovascular medicine field, Cardio Ventures will focus more on the medical device and diagnostics areas.  This focus is because of a better environment for securing attractive returns on investments based on development costs in those fields, which range $10 to $20 million and have a development time frame of two to four years.  If Cardio Ventures does get involved with cardiovascular therapeutics, it will most likely be in areas that could offer shorter time frames, lower development costs and lower risk profiles than new, pure, therapeutic entity development.  Such areas may include: existing therapeutic-device combinations, existing therapeutic-diagnostic combinations, delivery of existing therapeutics and pro-drugs based on existing therapeutics.

Exit Strategy and Potential
Cardio Ventures’ main focus will be to choose projects that will be able to present an exit opportunity within two to four years.  One of the primary ways to increase this probability will be to assess strategic partner/potential acquirer interest up front as part of the due diligence process prior to entering a project. Cardio Ventures’ focus on cardiology medicine will support this strategy, as it will have a ready network of interested parties in the field.