The healthcare industry is undergoing a dramatic transformation, driven by digital advancements and data abundance, evolving patient expectations, and demographic shifts. In this era of rapid change, innovative solutions are crucial for improving access, efficiency, and quality of healthcare provision. Cure Capital Advisors, a pioneering London-based healthcare focused asset manager is at the forefront of this revolution, driving growth and success within its portfolio.
Early Insights and Mission
David Cubbin, CEO of Cure Capital Advisors (CCA), recounts his formative experiences in sub-Saharan Africa, where he witnessed the stark reality of healthcare inequality. He observed firsthand how healthcare provision, including access to healthcare professionals, surgery, and medication never reached large swathes of the world’s population. This experience instilled in him a mission to address these challenges. Later, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the inefficiencies in healthcare systems stemming from shallow pools of human capital, under-invested infrastructure and a backlog of care. Cubbin saw an opportunity to combine his passion for healthcare and technology alongside his investment expertise to support the development of technologies that can step change the delivery of healthcare and meaningfully improve patient outcomes.
Against this backdrop, Cubbin established CCA with a mission to identify and invest in disruptive healthcare technologies, addressing unmet needs within their space, delivering tangible value to the ecosystem and providing attractive returns to investors.
Breakthroughs and Investments
CCA’s portfolio includes notable companies like Caresyntax, a surgical platform business which collects data in and around the operating room to make surgery safer, smarter and more e cient. Through this collection and analysis of data, the business can increase hospital margins, improve patient outcomes, and help build the next generation of surgical software, robotics and automation systems.
Another example is FidoCure, an AI-driven precision medicine platform for cancer which is fighting cancer “at both ends of the leash”. FidoCure is the world’s first clinically proven precision medicine solution for dogs which can improve pet patient outcomes by three times. Moreover, with their 1.9bn+ (and growing) datapoints, the business continuously refines its predictive algorithms and treatment recommendations for dogs, while also generating meaningful insights for human cancer treatment.
These investments demonstrate CCA’s commitment to investing in next-generation technologies which can genuinely transform the provision of care and service delivery in the industry.
The company today is proud of being recognized as one of the “Top 10 Healthcare Companies of the Year 2024” by The CEO Views.
David Cubbin’s Professional Background
David Cubbin’s educational and professional background have been instrumental in shaping his approach to healthcare investing. Born in Australia, he studied Arts and Law at the University of Sydney and Finance and Accounting at the London School of Economics. His global experiences working across Australia, Africa, Asia and Europe have enabled him to cultivate a diverse pipeline of opportunities and a deep network of investor relationships ranging from institutional investors to corporate investors to family offices. Cubbin’s expansive global networks have given him a competitive edge in identifying emerging trends and opportunities before they become mainstream.
Services
CCA looks for the most compelling health tech deals, invests in them, and syndicates them to like-minded investors. The company’s success lies in accessing the best opportunities, raising sufficient capital around them and supporting on value-creation. CCA helps its portfolio companies by providing a long-term, flexible and patient pool of capital, developing robust commercial and stakeholder partnerships and supporting them on their capital formation journey through to exit. CCA also works directly with investors to cultivate a pipeline of opportunities matching their investment thesis.
Challenges
The current capital market conditions pose significant challenges for healthcare startups. Cubbin emphasizes the need for companies to be more capital-efficient, which is a positive trend. However, this also means that many great ideas won’t receive the funding they need to thrive (or even survive). As a result, CCA is committed to finding innovative financing solutions that can overcome these challenges. Companies also face a range of challenges as they grow from seed through to their growth stage. CCA looks to actively partner with them and provide support throughout this journey, calling on its network to provide specialized expert support across a variety of domains that are relevant to each company’s specific needs.
Investment Scope
One element of CCA’s USP is its proprietary access to healthcare founders and opportunities. These relationships have been cultivated through involvement in specialized networks including the World Economic Forum, Founders Forum, Young Presidents Organization and a variety of family office networks.
CCA maintains a patient investment strategy – it seeks to nurture relationships with companies, follow their development and ensure that they are investing at the right point of a company’s development. Its typical tickets range from USD 5-15m and tends to invest in a range of stages with a preference of Series A-C.
Competitive Advantage
Cure Capital Advisors maintains its competitive advantage through:
- Specialized expertise in healthcare and technology
- Strategic focus on data-driven businesses
- Strong networks and partnerships
- Robust due diligence and risk management
- Data-driven decision-making
By leveraging these strengths, CCA is able to identify and invest in the most compelling health tech companies.
Advice to Emerging Entrepreneurs David Cubbin
- David Cubbin offers four pieces of advice to young
entrepreneurs: - Find your passion and choose a business idea which taps into that passion.
- Identify your strengths (or “superpowers”) and leverage them.
- Seek out mentors and advisors who have experience in your industry.
- Realise that setbacks are normal, and you learn more from your failures than your successes, so learn to embrace them.
With years of experience in both health tech and investment management, we are well placed to identify and execute on the most exciting health tech investments available.
