Productive Longevity
The signs of spring always signal a fresh start. I look out my office window every day delighting in the green taking over the dormant bushes. The blossom takeover. The return of the hummingbirds. Makes me ponder what is the fresh start in my professional world?
Well, there is a lot, but let’s start with Relentless Fund II, aka the “Relentless Health Pursuit Fund.”
Upfront and direct. Rather than a boiler plate postscript at the end of our newsletter. We are putting the ask up front and making it personal, our team wants to put more capital to work. There is so much opportunity in the health innovation ecosystem that we want to participate in, to activate and to influence. Our pipeline of Relentless investment opportunities is deep and varied.
So, what types of deals are we tracking? The companies range from ‘hospital to home’ enabling tech, to improving access to care in rural and remote environments, to tech savvy repeat entrepreneurs launching new strategies to tackle mental healthcare as well as dementia care.
Our pipeline of prospects covers a broad range of technology approaches as well. We will invest in deep tech to software only opportunities, complementing the strategy taken with Fund I which included true AI enabled products (Modality.AI) to regenerative medicine (Aspect Biosystems).
VC curious?
Relentless Health Pursuit Fund (aka “Fund II”) has not launched as we continue to seek new investors to facilitate a high impact first closing and start leading new rounds of investment. Realize Capital is our anchor investor alongside an extraordinary list of individuals and family offices committed to participate.
Here are a few VC fund features that stand out as most often misunderstood, fueling the perception that fund participation is unattainable for some. . . but it can be a brilliant portfolio diversification strategy, especially when the markets are ridiculous as they are right now.
· Capital is called over 10 years (you don’t need to advance all your commitment upfront).
· Pacing of the capital calls is driven by deal flow in the first few years.
· Based on your commitment level, we often create co-investing LP opportunities to increase the impact that ‘the Relentless Group’ may have to benefit a company. Half of our portfolio in Fund I benefit from Relentless LP co-investment.
· We love to lead deals. Why? Because it is hard enough for entrepreneurs to lock in their lead investor. We believe it is equally our responsibility to find values aligned co-investors to fill out rounds.
There will be progress through market turmoil. Our market leadership will thrive. Individuals living with chronic disease will continue to need the type of solutions that our portfolio companies will deliver. Our fund thesis is powerful, relevant and enduring. Relative to other sectors, healthcare is more predictable during periods of economic uncertainty. People will continue to develop health issues; we will all continue to age whether the market resembles a bull or a bear, or even a fish (I am visualizing ‘flip flop’).
Send me a note (brenda@relentlesspursuitpartners.com) if you are an accredited investor and wish to explore joining our closing cued up for the summer. We are building new strategic partnerships across the country, and globally. In the spirit of expanding our community, we welcome introductions to likeminded investors.
Productive Longevity
The favourite shorthand that I have read about longevity is that it is effectively a rebranding of ‘preventative health’. You know what? That’s true. That is exactly what longevity is. We are choosing to reframe this as ‘productive longevity’, which encapsulates all that we do with Relentless portfolio construction.
· Tackle known health risks.
· Mitigate the progression of disease specific symptoms.
· Support individuals facing daily challenges with a chronic condition.
· Reduce the risk of developing co-morbidities.
· Measure objectively with meaningful impact on health outcomes.
· Face every day with personal health insights. Empower the individual.
Healthspan is the period of life you live without a chronic condition or disease. However, we believe your lifespan (the length of time you live) can be more productive with technology providing new options and insights even if you are living with a chronic condition or disease.
At Relentless, we focus on investing in chronic disease management because we believe deeply that productive longevity can also be joyful longevity with meaningful tools, insights, and support. That is where we live. That is where we invest. Because we know that there is a 73% chance that once you hit the age of 65, you will be living life with at least one of the ten most common chronic conditions. By 2030, chronic diseases are expected to account for 70% of total global deaths and 56% of the global burden of disease. We want to reduce those probabilities.
We may make an investment that tackles the risk when you are a teenager. We may make an investment that addresses your chronic condition as an older adult. We invest in the continuum of health and life.
Educating is in our DNA
I am amazed at how a ‘syllabus’ provides soul food for my brain, like the signs of spring. In the past few months, I have delivered my infamous “VC 101” session for Life Sciences BC’s Investor Readiness cohort, and most recently shared an iteration of the content to a global audience for Creative Destruction Labs new “CDL Link” initiative.
Next up, on May 8th, I will be sharing a customized version of the program in person downtown Vancouver. I love IRL. This time I will be positioning the content as prep for entrepreneurs in advance of the upcoming Web Summit in Vancouver (May 27-30). ‘The Road to the Web Summit’ afternoon program is sponsored in partnership with Innovate BC and Life Sciences BC. Watch LinkedIn for notices on how to register.
At the end of May, I will be a lecturer for a new course for the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. I am super excited to be connecting with medical students with interest in commercialization of innovation and entrepreneurship.
We are determined and intentional about pursuing strategic partnerships with institutions that are educating the next cycle of founders and investors. We invest the time in educating and working with organizations like UBC and Life Sciences BC because it is also self-serving for our portfolio of companies. You never know where the next collaboration or strategic investor will percolate to the front of the room.
Education in Bloom
We love connecting with students at all stages of their academic journey. Thus far in 2025 we have participated in special events speaking to graduate students (School of Biomedical Engineering at UBC) on
“Visionary Leadership and Strategic Thinking” to helping UBC commerce undergraduates with investment decisions as part of their semester finale. Real money was on the line. That was fun.
My personal favourite was speaking to high school students across Canada during a symposium sponsored by “Let’s Talk Science”. Fearless tech reporter for the Globe & Mail, Sean Silcoff, hosted the Q&A part of the session where Tamer Mohamed, CEO of Aspect Biosystems (a Relentless portfolio leader) and I, along with Chadwick King from Amgen worked to inspire students on the topic of “Transforming Ideas into Innovations”. You can check out the event and even DOWNLOAD the teacher’s DISCUSSION GUIDE here. I would be giddy with access to such resources when I was teaching science.
Portfolio Sprouting in the Warmth of the Spring
· On April 7th, Modality made a huge announcement. Along with their commercial partner Verge Genomics, they shared that their technology (Modality’s) had identified digital clinical biomarker endpoints sensitive to short term disease progression in an ALS clinical trial. Why is this so important? Biomarker discovery linked to disease progression, as well as signaling the efficacy of new drugs will have a powerful impact on care management for devastating neurodegenerative diseases. Early days, very encouraging. Congratulations team Modality!
· May 27-30, Orpyx Medical will be featured by Innovate Canada as a Life Sciences Week innovation site. If you are in the Calgary region (for CVCA perhaps?), consider dropping in for a tour.
· Heading to the annual Bloom Burton healthcare conference in May? Three Relentless portfolio companies, Aspect Biosystems, Canary Medical and Orpyx snagged coveted private company presentation slots. Perhaps we will see you there?
Final Exam
And because we have spent so much time on university campuses and in classrooms this spring, and it is the final exam and essay time of year, a teacher anecdote to close. . .
The lesson was on existentialism.
The instructor places a chair at the front of the class and assigns an essay on the lens of an existentialist. Several students wrote beautiful essays about the chair’s construction, design and use. But the best essay was written by a student whose entire essay consisted of two words …
What chair?