Making the jump from investor to start-up

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17.09.20



I’m excited to be joining MMC portfolio company Current Health. Healthcare is increasingly being delivered in the patient’s home and Current is making it possible.


Author: Tom MoonThe growth of Current Health in 2020 has been astonishing. At the end of 2019 its market-leading remote care platform was well-placed to support the long-term trend of healthcare moving outside the four walls of the hospital. Then COVID-19 arrived and dramatically accelerated that paradigm shift. Now, Current is being used by multiple US and UK health care systems, including Mayo Clinic and Imperial, and several Top 20 PharmaCos. Demand outstrips supply and the future looks very bright.

In 2018 MMC invested in the company’s seed round and then stepped up to lead the Series A in 2019. We’ve always been excited by the vision of the founders, Chris and Stewart, and the quality of the platform that the Current Health team is building. In turn, we’ve done our best to support them as they build a category-leading business. When the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic became apparent and the need for Current’s solution surged I joined the business on a 3-month secondment. MMC was keen to provide additional resource to the company and equip me with some valuable operator experience. MMC is always looking for atypical opportunities to allow team members to immerse themselves into specific areas of interest. My colleague, Dele, previously spent time with Gousto which you can read about here. I jumped at the opportunity.

The secondment was a fantastic learning experience. In a 40+ person company, I was tasked with supporting several functions and mainly worked on last mile logistics, clinical pathways and sales — which is a pretty broad mix. The greatest value was the opportunity to work with the stellar senior leaders that Chris (CEO) has recruited including COO Richard Lennox (ex-Skyscanner), CFO John McLean (ex-Kyruus) and CMO Adam Wolfberg (ex-Ovia and Athena Health).

As investors, we often talk about developing a strategy and implementing it ruthlessly whilst remaining opportunistic. Having the chance to work with the Current Health team brought that to life and I loved it. I found that my mix of clinical, consulting and investor experience was valuable to the company and I was able to meaningfully support them. Current has a bold long-term vision which everyone is aligned on but, like any early stage business, also has a bunch of stuff it needs to figure out in order to get there. It was rewarding to help them tackle some of those problems and to see the company move forward.

It became increasingly clear to me that Current is well positioned to become a market leader in the nascent, but much talked about, field of remote care. Their hardware + software proposition provides clinical teams with an unprecedented view of the patient and they continue to secure leading US health systems as customers. Dexcom, the leading continuous glucose monitoring company, also recognises this and has formed a deep product and commercial partnership with Current.

Tom Moon

When Chris asked me to join the commercial team full-time, I knew that I had a difficult decision to make. MMC is a brilliant fund to work at primarily because of the autonomy it gives to junior members of the team. There is a strong focus on being research-led and everyone is encouraged to deepen their understanding of a focus area which I have really appreciated. However, as I reflected on the intersection of my skills and experience it seemed like the natural next step to take and I am excited to be supporting the next stage of Current’s journey.

Digital Health is a strong focus area for MMC. Alongside Current Health the MMC portfolio also includes digital health companies Elder and Agamon, as well as former portfolio company Echo (acquired by McKesson) which continues to go from strength to strength. The fund also continues to have a strong research focus which supports ongoing work to deepen its understanding of digital health. At the moment the team is looking at some really interesting opportunities in the space and has recently made an exciting investment which will be announced soon. I’ll now be on the other side of the table but I am staying on as an Advisor on Digital Health and will continue to help MMC invest in the best digital health start-ups.