Meet Bart Emery
A Q&A with Inflect Health’s new Corporate Venture Capital Manager.
When building successful companies, it’s imperative to build relationships that cultivate trust, facilitate innovation, and unlock hidden potential. That’s why we’re thrilled to bring aboard Bart Emery as our new Corporate Venture Capital Manager here at Inflect Health. With his track record of relationship-building in the startup and venture space, he’ll be heading up our efforts to forge deeper partnerships with entrepreneurs and investors.
To work in this space requires robust knowledge of science, law, and business, and Bart carries degrees in all three: a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Cornell, a J.D., and Entrepreneurial Law Certificate from the University of Colorado — Boulder, and most recently an M.B.A. from Colorado, as well. He’s a triple threat with a formidable professional history to match.
Before joining Inflect Health, Bart worked with startups and investors for over 5 years wearing many different hats- at the Mayo Clinic as a Corporate Development Manager focusing on early-stage VC and corporate transactions, at startups in business and legal roles with experiences including fundraising and M&A, and with angel and venture investors leading due diligence.
He’s also secured and licensed IP as a patent attorney, including drafting, prosecuting, and performing opinion work for patents in biotechnology and drug discovery.
Whew. Got all that? (Of course, you did.) So in the spirit of continued relationship building, we figured, what better way to help you get to know our newest team member than with a little Q&A.
Find out how Bart will be serving our partners and prospective portfolio companies, how he sees health tech evolving, why diversity is so crucial to innovation, what makes the perfect pitch, and why legal work was his least favorite part of being a lawyer.
[This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.]
Q: Welcome, Bart! Please tell us: what will your role cover at Inflect health?
So my job is to co-lead our investment in early-stage healthcare companies with our medical leadership. I’m going to be building relationships with great companies and great investors in the whole ecosystem. I’m all about finding great companies to work with, not just to make investments, but also to add value and support them so they can be successful and transform healthcare.
[At Inflect Health] We’re building a very strong venture program. The other side of my role is developing strategy and using my financial acumen to tie together the finance and operations aspects on the back end.
Q: What does an ideal partnership between Inflect Health and entrepreneurs look like, or mean to you?
Ideally, we find a great team that’s looking for clinical expertise and validation from our organization. Our immediate team has [combined] literally hundreds of years of clinical healthcare experience. A great partnership allows us to add that expertise and value to all these great companies and allow them to excel in the space.
Q: I’m sure you’re no stranger to pitches. What does a perfect pitch look like to you?
It’s hard to say if there’s a one-size-fits-all, but a great pitch clearly relates the technology to the market, to the go-to-market strategy. It explains why this is a great product that’s needed, why the market is attractive, and why they’re the right team to deliver on it. It’ll have a clear story on how those parts (product, market, strategy, team) actually are deeply related, and how that relationship and all its components give them not just a competitive advantage, but an unfair advantage.
Q: How do you think VCs can better democratize access to funds, pilots, and other resources for startups led by and/or serving people from marginalized and underserved communities?
Investors need to be proactive about making sure that they are evaluating teams and companies on their merits and their likelihood of success bringing solutions to their target markets. Also, investors should realize that we collectively have a huge opportunity to shape the world.
We need to embrace diversity on teams every chance we get. Teams benefit from having a range of backgrounds represented. Funders and partners should also recognize that the best place to develop and deploy innovative solutions can be marginalized and underserved communities.
Q: Digging into your work history a little: You spent some time at Mayo Clinic? What was your role like there and how did it (or others in your history) prepare you for this one?
Mayo Clinic is a great organization with an incredible history of leading healthcare innovation. I enjoyed working with them a lot, and consider my two years there as a great introduction to the complexity of the healthcare industry. [While there,] I did early-stage venture investments as well as transactional deals, with most focused on higher-complexity care. In a lot of ways, they have a similar investing model as what we’re doing here at Inflect. So I want to continue facilitating those relationships like I did there, but do so in Inflect’s newer and “start-up within a business” environment.
Previously, I had 10 years of experience with startups with early-stage investors. I’ve been on either side of the table in venture rounds, business deals, and acquisitions, and I have experience in every seat: investor, entrepreneur, etc. It allows me the unique ability to relate to and link up with everyone.
Q: You’re a licensed attorney, and you’ve also been an investor in the health tech startup space. That feels like a bit of a career pivot. What piqued your interest? Has health tech been a lifelong passion of yours?
Well, I’ve always been interested in innovation. I became a patent attorney to work with innovative ideas in the life sciences, and I was very lucky to have the opportunity to branch out and add my legal expertise to angel investors and startups. When I was at Rockies Venture Club, I did due diligence on that side and then I got an MBA to even better understand the finance side. From there, I went on to more professional investment roles. As a lawyer, my favorite thing was working with startups. My least favorite was the actual legal work. So, now I get to do what I am really passionate about.
Q: What initially excited you about working with Inflect Health?
From the first time I talked with the team, I was thrilled with how passionate, open-minded, and flexible everyone was, and I think the team is really great and aligned with Inflect’s mission. It’s something you look for in a company to invest in, but it’s also something you look for when you’re trying to join a team, too.
Q: Gazing into your (hypothetical) crystal ball, how do you see health tech evolving in the next 3–5 years?
In the next 3–5 years, healthcare is going to change a lot. In a meaningful way. This space is evolving at an incredible rate. It’s going through rapid technology acceleration. Health has been fairly immune from aspects of tech innovation for a long time, but now AI, automation, remote and mobile technology — any emerging tech or new business model, really — you can finally see healthcare is at the vanguard, and hitting a fast cycle on technology updates. It’s an exciting time to be in this industry. It’s traditionally slower, but now there’s immense disruption and there are great new technologies that will help people and patients.
Q: What are some important areas of opportunity you think might be worth exploring with respect to investment, or just to better serve the health community in general?
We’re always looking for digital health tools that empower the health practitioner and patient relationship — not replace it. That’s very important. There are a lot of great new tools that extend the reach of care teams, allowing people to communicate more often and meaningfully with their own health and wellness professionals. I’m interested in those.
We’re not trying to disrupt people getting treatment: we want to help people get advice and treatment, by the right health and wellness professionals, when and where they want and need it. Most importantly: We’re here for anything that helps people be more connected to care teams, and empowers them to be proactive in improving their health and lives.
Q: “A catalyst for better care.” That’s the Inflect Health mission. When you hear that phrase, what does it mean to you?
This is a hub for accelerating new models and new technologies for healthcare by getting them out in the world faster. That’s our role: actively finding the great ideas that are going to change healthcare, and speeding up their ability to do just that.
