Wavemaker 360 Health Research
Investment Thesis
Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health ("Wavemaker 360") is a specialized healthcare venture fund founded in 2018 that invests exclusively in early-stage healthcare technology companies. The fund's core thesis centers on backing healthcare disruptors—the entrepreneurs who recognize how the industry is transforming itself and want to make meaningful impact. Unlike traditional healthcare VCs, Wavemaker 360 focuses entirely on health-tech innovation while explicitly excluding bio-pharma drug discovery, allowing them to leverage their unique network advantage of healthcare-industry insiders as limited partners.
Stage and Check Size
Wavemaker 360 is a seed-stage specialist, with the following investment patterns:
- Primary focus: Seed-stage investments ($2M-$8M rounds)
- Check size: $500K-$2M for first checks, with 2-4X reserve for follow-ons into Series A/B
- Secondary: Occasional pre-seed and smaller Series A investments
- Approach: Always co-invests with other venture funds, hospitals, corporates, or angel groups
The fund expects portfolio companies to generate commercial revenue within 6-12 months of pre-revenue investment (approximately 50% of their investments are pre-revenue).
Fund Size and AUM
- Fund I & II combined: $85M+ AUM (as of 2022)
- Fund II: Closed at $64M (2022)
- Fund III: Launched in 2024
- Current AUM (as stated in FAQ): ~$200M across all funds
- Portfolio aggregate value: $2.5B+ (portfolio of 60 companies across 3 funds)
Geographic Focus
Wavemaker 360 prioritizes the United States with concentrated knowledge of the US healthcare system. They consider themselves uniquely qualified to back healthcare startups due to deep institutional healthcare knowledge. Secondary geographies include Canada (neighbor market), Western Europe (selective), and Asia via sister fund headquartered in Singapore. Fund deployment roughly follows: 25% Southern California, 25% Northern California, 50% rest of US and world.
Sector and Model Focus
Wavemaker 360 uses an expansive definition of healthcare companies while strategically excluding bio-pharma drug discovery. Their focus areas include health-tech and digital health, medical devices, pharma-tech, telehealth and remote care, healthcare marketplaces, and science/research companies.
Investment Thesis: The Quintuple Aim
Wavemaker 360 evaluates portfolio companies through their proprietary "Quintuple Aim" framework, extending the traditional healthcare Triple Aim:
- Improved Patient Experience - Making healthcare services more convenient and satisfying
- Lower Costs - Reducing healthcare spending while maintaining outcomes
- Better Outcomes - Improving clinical results and health status
- Improved Experience for Clinicians - Reducing clinician burnout, supporting workflow
- New Revenue Streams for Providers - Helping private practicing physicians and clinics generate new revenue
This framework reveals their preference for business models that benefit the healthcare provider ecosystem while improving patient and clinician experiences.
Investment Process and Decision Making
- Lead tendency: Leads, co-leads, and follows (flexible approach)
- Board seats: Not required, but negotiated when valuable
- Co-investment: Mandatory—always partners with other funds, hospitals, corporates, or angel groups
- Preferred instruments: Priced rounds, SAFEs, convertible notes
- Founder preferences: Value healthcare domain expertise, entrepreneurial vision for solving real healthcare problems
Differentiation and Competitive Advantage
Wavemaker 360's primary differentiation is their limited partner (LP) network. The vast majority of their 300+ investors are healthcare industry insiders with deep operating experience including health systems executives, hospital administrators, post-acute care operators, health innovation and policy experts, healthcare M&A specialists, regulatory and risk experts, government-sponsored healthcare operators, and payors and health system leaders.
This allows Wavemaker 360 to provide portfolio companies with more than just capital—they offer direct introductions to healthcare executives for go-to-market strategy, operational expertise and guidance, healthcare industry relationships and partnerships, 200+ formal and informal relationships with healthcare institutions, and access to hospital networks, health systems, academic medical centers, medical schools, post-acute facilities, and urgent care networks.
Portfolio Strategy and Activity
Portfolio scope: 60+ companies across three funds, with portfolio aggregate value exceeding $2.5B
Recent activity (2025):
- Most recent investment: August 25, 2025 (Pear Bio - computational biology for tumor microenvironment)
- Another 2025 investment: April 22, 2025 (Sensorum Health - clinics/outpatient services)
- Active deployment from Fund III
Notable portfolio companies: CarlSmed (surgical robotics for personalized spine surgery), Elektra Health (women's pelvic health), Deepscribe (AI medical scribe), AirPay (automated dental insurance verification), Luna (physical therapy at home covered by insurance), Hypercare (automated telemedicine), Uptime Health (home-based sensor technology), Strados Labs (lung health monitoring), Functional Fluidics (enzyme-free cell extraction), and Polaris Genomics (genomics analysis for bench scientists).
The portfolio demonstrates deep focus on healthcare technology with particular emphasis on AI/ML applications in healthcare, remote patient monitoring and home-based care, clinical operations optimization, provider enablement and efficiency, women's health and specialized populations, and personalized and precision medicine platforms.
Team and Leadership
Founding Partner: John Nackel - Founder and General Partner
Core Partnership: Jay Goss (General Partner), Maxim Owen (Partner), Anne Dordai (Head of Portfolio and Platform)
Clinical/Medical Expertise: Bud Lawrence, MD (Venture Partner), Monica Jain, MD (Venture Partner), Kwame Ulmer (Venture Partner), Matt Michelson, PhD (AI Technologist-in-Residence)
Operations: Tom Zenty (Executive-in-Residence), Eric Marton (Senior Fund Advisor), Michelle Wang (Senior Associate), Brian Kadota (Director of Venture Operations), Emily Ah Sing (Fund Administration)
Supporting Network: Council of Strategic Advisors I & II with 20+ healthcare executives providing expertise across health systems, hospitals, behavioral health, healthcare staffing, precision medicine, government healthcare, ambulatory care, digital health, and payors.
Investment Approach Summary
Wavemaker 360 is a clinician and provider-focused healthcare technology investor specializing in seed-stage companies that solve real problems across the healthcare value chain. Their competitive advantage lies not in capital size (relatively modest at $500K-$2M checks) but in their unique ability to provide direct access to healthcare industry operators and decision-makers, help navigate healthcare commercialization and reimbursement challenges, support value-based healthcare business model transitions, connect founders with distribution and implementation partners, and operate with deep understanding of healthcare's structural incentives and pain points.
The fund is particularly well-suited for health-tech founders with healthcare domain expertise seeking capital, guidance, and industry connections for their seed-stage ventures. They explicitly avoid founders seeking passive capital alone, instead partnering deeply with those building solutions for long-standing healthcare industry challenges.