eHealth Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
eHealth Ventures (eHV) is an Israel-based, early-stage digital health fund and technological incubator founded in 2016 as a partnership between the Maccabi Fund (the venture arm of Maccabi Healthcare Services, Israel's second-largest HMO) and Teva Tzim. The firm's thesis centers on optimizing venture building by pairing capital with a unique alliance of strategic healthcare partners, an alliance it says gives portfolio companies direct access to EMR data, patient populations, clinical trial sites, domain experts, and commercial distribution networks that early-stage founders typically lack. eHV positions itself as guiding "digital health ventures from ideas to exits," emphasizing hands-on, 360-degree support from pre-investment sourcing through post-commercialization liquidity events. The firm has reviewed roughly 1,800-1,900 companies over its history and built a portfolio of approximately 20-35 companies (reported figures vary by source and year), spanning digital diagnostics, therapeutics, home care, and bioconvergence.
Sector Focus
eHV invests exclusively in digital health, with a strong concentration in AI-enabled diagnostics and monitoring: voice-biomarker neurological disease detection (VocaVibe), intraoperative AI brain mapping (SurgiAI) and neuromonitoring (NERVIO), sleep apnea and respiratory disease management (SleepAI, RespirAI, InhaliMed), prenatal genetic screening (IdentifAI), at-home PCR diagnostics (ToDx), diabetes management (DreaMed), and immune-mediated inflammatory disease monitoring (NimBio). The portfolio also includes healthcare operations/workflow automation (Agamon, QLog), tele-rehabilitation robotics (GaitBetter, Skelable), cardio/respiratory ultrasound monitoring (Nitur Medical), automated venous line management (VenoBotic), and affordable hematology lab hardware (Engineering for All). The consistent throughline is technology that shifts care from hospital to home and from reactive to predictive/preventive medicine.
Stage Focus
eHV invests from pre-seed through early-stage, pre-revenue ventures. In mid-2024 the firm launched a "fast-track" pre-seed program that promises applicants a decision within three weeks (including a term sheet) and funding within three months, run in partnership with the Israel Innovation Authority incubator that all portfolio companies join. This is the firm's primary sourcing mechanism for new companies today.
Check Size
The fast-track pre-seed program guarantees an investment of NIS 3-3.5 million (approximately $800,000-$930,000) within three months of a positive response. Earlier-stage or smaller initial checks (historically as low as ~$100K for seed-stage bets, per third-party deal data) also appear in the firm's history, suggesting a working range of roughly $250K-$1M depending on stage and round composition.
Lead Tendency
eHV functions as the lead investor and incubator sponsor for its fast-track pre-seed cohort, placing companies into its own incubator program rather than simply co-investing alongside others. It also draws on its partner network (Amgen Ventures, Medison Ventures, Mayo Clinic, SCI, Hadar Group, and others) for follow-on and co-investment opportunities.
Recent Activity
eHV's most recently confirmed press-dated activity includes the October 2023 investment in VocaVibe (voice-biomarker diagnostics for neurodegenerative disease) and the June 2024 launch of the fast-track pre-seed program, introduced explicitly as a response to the 2023-2024 downturn in Israeli digital health and life sciences fundraising. The firm's most recently announced fund is a $30 million vehicle disclosed in January 2022. Newer portfolio logos (Fize, Nitur Medical, and a 2026-dated VenoBotic asset) indicate continued deployment into 2025-2026, though dated press confirmation for those individual rounds was not found at time of research.
Portfolio Highlights
Portfolio companies span AI diagnostics (VocaVibe, SurgiAI, NERVIO, IdentifAI, ToDx), chronic disease management (RespirAI, DreaMed, NimBio, SleepAI, InhaliMed), operational/workflow tools (Agamon, QLog), rehabilitation and monitoring hardware (GaitBetter, Skelable, Nitur Medical, VenoBotic, Fize), and affordable diagnostic hardware for underserved settings (Engineering for All). No confirmed exits were identified in this research pass.
Team
- Keren Schachter, Chairperson — 20+ years in healthcare/business leadership; CEO of Maccabi Enterprise (Maccabi Healthcare Services' business arm); prior Director of Maccabi's Southern District and Chief Strategic Officer; Harvard Senior Leadership Program graduate.
- Yossi Lovton, CEO — 35+ years of executive leadership in technology and innovation; previously the fund's CTO for eight years; earlier SVP of R&D/Engineering and GM of LifeWatch Technologies; 28 years at Motorola Israel.
- Adv. Orly Sternfeld, General Counsel — ~20 years representing tech companies, VC funds, and investors in cross-border transactions; LL.B, B.A. Accounting, MBA from Tel Aviv University.
- Aryeh Stern, CPA / Director of Finance — Licensed Israeli CPA; prior experience at KPMG and across medtech and tourism sectors.
- Tali Lipszyc, Admin. Manager — Office manager since 2016.
- Stephen M Shapiro, US Partner — 50-year career across ADP, cellular, and digital health leadership roles; involved in exits exceeding $1 billion.
- Sebastian Fainbraun, CFA, US Partner — Founding partner at Shafa Invesco (family office); venture partner and strategy consultant to several PE-owned businesses.
- Kelly Klein, Corporate Development Manager — Former JPMorgan Chase banker; prior VC experience at DN Capital and Apex Ventures; ran her own digital-health-focused fundraising/M&A advisory practice before joining eHV.
Note: press coverage from 2024 identifies Talor Sax as Managing Partner and incubator CEO; he no longer appears on the firm's current team page, suggesting a leadership transition since then.
Decision Process
eHV operates as a partnership of a small executive/investment team (chairperson, CEO, general counsel, finance, and US-based partners) rather than a solo-GP structure or large investment committee. The fast-track program's promised three-week response time indicates a relatively fast, partnership-level decision process for pre-seed applications.
Founder Preferences
eHV backs Israeli digital health founders — frequently teams originating from clinical pilots at partner hospitals/HMOs (e.g., VocaVibe's pilot at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center) — building diagnostic, therapeutic, monitoring, or care-delivery technology with a credible path to clinical validation and commercialization through the firm's healthcare-system partners.
Geographic Focus
Primarily Israel, leveraging local hospital, HMO, and government (Israel Innovation Authority) infrastructure. The firm has also pursued cross-border commercialization partnerships, including with Japanese investors/distributors and, per its "About" boilerplate, the Mayo Clinic in the US.