How we work
Collaborations and investments
The Philips Ventures team actively supports you in recognizing the full value of your business and opens opportunities to partner with Philips to efficiently scale.
Access to growth capital. Continued commitment.
The strongest impact for Philips and our customers happens when our investments scale. Our team gets personally involved to investigate the best model for a partnership and to find the right expertise within Philips to support your growth and strategic decision-making.
Our business agnostic fund invests in promising start-ups to help drive the future of Philips digital transformation in healthcare. Our preference is for syndicated investments.
We orchestrate a relationship between you and a business unit within Philips, which could be based on a commercial contract with Philips or our customers, the sharing or licensing of IP, co-development, joint venturing and more.
We work with investors across the globe who have similar investment philosophies and areas of focus.
A flexible,
founder-friendly
approach
Start-up partners make an impact
Compassionate cancer care
What if patients’ experiences informed ways to mitigate symptoms and to reduce hospitalizations? Carevive believes its software that generates personalized patient care plans and remote symptom management is the answer. A Philips financing round has helped Carevive strengthen its position.
Ready to get started?
Philips has strong relationships with nearly every hospital in the world. That kind of market penetration, and that collective knowledge about where healthcare is going, are invaluable to young companies.”
Todd Cozzens
Managing partner of Transformation Capital and a Philips Ventures LP investor
Frequently asked questions
- Who is a fit for Philips Ventures?
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Our team’s focus is on relationships with early-stage innovative companies across the world in our thematic areas of interest.
From our experience, successful engagements often start with companies that meet the following criteria:
For business-sponsored collaborations and investments:- Well-rounded and experienced founding team
- Seed level and above, to Series B
- Clearly defined and validated solution
- Regulatory pathway completed or in progress
- In-line with the Philips focus areas
- While geographically agnostic; proximity to relevant Philips sites does support collaboration
For the Philips Health Technology Venture Fund:
- Series A/B stage
- Initial investment of $2 million – $5 million EUR/USD, reserves at twice initial investment
- We syndicate all deals
- Company maturity at early commercial stage
- Investment goal is to confirm product validation / value proposition and drive scale
- Who isn’t a fit for Philips Ventures?
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Our preference is toward digital propositions through software, analytics and tech-enabled services. We are not currently investing in development-stage businesses.
- What is a collaboration with Philips?
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There are different ways to create a relationship with Philips, depending on your solution and the requirement you have for growth. One of these ways is through our investment vehicles, whether direct or business sponsored, and another way is through a collaboration.
This collaboration could be based on a commercial contract with Philips or our customers, the sharing or licensing of IP, co-development, joint venturing and more. It is the responsibility of Philips Ventures to investigate these options and work with both you and Philips to create these opportunities for engagement.
- What are your selection criteria for investments?
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In our due diligence, we always validate if there is a fit both with the innovation needs of our customers as well as the areas in which Philips has the ambition to further build a presence.
This helps us to validate the opportunity to bring commercial opportunities to our businesses over the course of our investment period. Further, we look at the stand-alone value creation potential of the start-up, similar to what an institutional investor would do.
- What is your investment process for venture funding?
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Our process and timeline for investments mirrors that of most financial investors, with an additional set of corporate functional diligence which is completed concurrent with the standard investment process.
- What are your terms?
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For our digital health venture capital investments through Philips Health Technology Ventures, we intentionally avoid any strategic terms (e.g. acquisition rights or distribution rights). Our desired terms are designed to mirror financial investors, with straightforward investor rights and protections in place to allow us to manage the investments.
- Do you take a board seat?
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When Philips makes a direct investment, our priorities are the management of the investment and the ability for Philips to drive value for the company. We are active investors and believe we can leverage the expertise within Philips to drive value for our portfolio of start-ups, as part of the governance for those companies we invest in. In some cases, this is as a voting board member and in others it’s as a board observer.
- Do you lead rounds?
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We can lead investments, co-lead investments or follow a lead investor. What is critical is we want to syndicate all deals.
- Do you co-invest?
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Yes, we actively work with a range of investors across the world who have similar investment philosophies and areas of focus to ours.
- How do you help start-ups post-investment?
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Philips Ventures believes strongly in being an active champion of the start-ups that we invest in and/or collaborate with.
Our investment leads work with your business to help you grow and scale, and provide guidance on business models, technical and commercial implementation, financing, team build and leadership and growth methodologies.
Our innovation leads orchestrate collaborations between your business and the various business units within Philips and act as the intermediary between the business/market and start-up, helping you navigate the organization.
