Looking to get more early-stage funding to digital health startups, ex-Teleclinic founder Reinhard Meier starts Yzr Capital with €100 million fund

Reinhard Meier (German telemedicine provider Teleclinic’s co-founder) has set up a new VC in an effort to drive more cash into digital health in early-stage growth phases.

The new VC firm, called Yzr Capital, is announcing its first fundraise for a €100 million LP vehicle that’s currently raised 60% of its overall corpus, German newspaper Handelsblatt reports.

The EU’s European Investment Fund is one of the cornerstone investors, together with Bertelsmann Investments (a corporate VC for German media conglomerate Bertelsmann) and skin care brands company Beiersdorf (makers of NIVEA.)

There’s also a slate of family offices and industrial and tech entrepreneurs, getting behind Yzr Capital’s vision of spurring digital innovation right across the spectrum, spanning digital medical devices, virtual health services and back-end software.

Meier, a trained doctor specialised in molecular imaging, has seen inside the perspective of a digital health startup, having taken five and a half years to grow TeleClinic ahead of an exit to online pharmacy and medicines wholesale seller Zur Rose Group in 2020.

Joining him at Yzr Capital is the seasoned VC investor Markus Feuerecker, whose career in private equity markets dates over 10 years.

In terms of the competition, Yzr believes its European digital health VC peers have less capital to deploy. it sees the arrival of more dry powder as a good thing, as the marketplace settles down after the COVID-19 pandemic prompted digital health’s meteoric rise.

Meier tells Handelsblatt: “There is still great potential for catching up, in which startups will have a decisive share. 

“As a doctor and investor, it is important to me to give ideas a chance that can improve people’s health in the long term.”