Jan Garfinkel
Founder and Managing Partner, Arboretum Ventures. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorfounderexecutivearboretumvc.com ↗
In 2002, Garfinkle founded Arboretum Ventures, investing in medical technology, diagnostics, and tech-enabled healthcare delivery, managing over $1 billion across six funds. She previously served as Board Chair of the National Venture Capital Association and led investments in companies including HandyLab and CardioMEMS.
1shows
1appearances
19statements
6resolved
2supported
1contradicted
33%fully supported
Everything Jan Garfinkel said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Garfinkel: Midwest Startups Cost 33% Less to Build, Adding 1x Return
“The beauty of being in the Midwest and focusing primarily on Midwestern companies is that it takes about a third less dollars to develop the company in the Midwest because salaries, rent, vendor costs, just all those things all combined. You basically get an a…”
Garfinkel: Pharma Adjacencies Capture Upside Without Binary Trial Failure Risk
“Pharma adjacencies, which is companies that play in the pharma space, but it's without a drug, so they have the same upside potential, because pharma has big upside potential, but without the binary risk that the drug would fail in phase three.”
Garfinkel: Venture Capital Skills Can Be Taught; Cultural Fit Cannot
“We feel we can teach anybody how to do venture, how we evaluate companies, how we help the board level. We can teach all of those things. We want to make sure they're a cultural fit from a personality standpoint and a work ethic.”
Garfinkel: Half of Arboretum's 15 Major Exits Were Within One Mile
“I think we've invested now in 50 or 55 companies. We've had about 20 exits, but 15 that were in sort of the five to 10 X range, and when you look at that, half of them are a mile from our office.”
Garfinkel: Many Healthcare Startup Exits Occur Between $200M and $400M
“In the world we live in, in healthcare, many of the exits are in the 200 to four hundred million dollar range.”
Garfinkel: Hiring Pure Investment Bankers Did Not Work Well for Arboretum
“And when we've tried to bring in people that are just like bankers, that hasn't worked out nearly as well for us.”
Garfinkel: Arboretum Will Probably Not Exceed a $250 Million Fund Size
“We probably won't go much bigger ever than two 50 because we find that that will be really hard to be successful because of the normal range of exits with our companies.”
Garfinkel: Arboretum Returns All LP Capital Before Taking Any Carry
“We return all the capital first to our investors, and then we get into the carry.”
Garfinkel: Device Reimbursement Path Adds up to $50M in Development Costs
“If we have to also go through the reimbursement path, it will add another up to fifty million dollars to that company's development and timeline, but cost to develop that product to get reimbursement approval.”
Garfinkel: Arboretum Lost $10M After Sonitus Failed to Get CMS Reimbursement
“And when we couldn't get reimbursement approval, it killed the company, so we had to shut it down. We lost ten million dollars.”
Garfinkel: Atherectomy Provided Better Long-Term Patient Outcomes Than Angioplasty
“The problem with angioplasty is that it would come back pretty quickly. If it's called re-stenosis, it re-blocks. With athrectomy, which was what this technology was called, it would shave it out and it wouldn't rebound so quickly. So it was better for patient…”
Garfinkel: Rick Snyder shut down his VC fund to run for governor
“One of them, the senior gentleman wanted to become governor of our state, and he did, so he shut his fund down, and that was Rick Snyder. Governor of our state for two terms.”
Garfinkel: Arboretum Targets Investments That Cut Healthcare Costs by 20-30%
“We're trying to remove 20 to 30% of the cost of that procedure or of that technology with our investment.”
Garfinkel: Arboretum Prioritizes Medical Devices Fitting Existing Reimbursement Codes
“We tend to primarily invest in companies that already have a code exists, and it's just a new product in an existing code.”
Garfinkel: Congressman Wrote CMS Bill Following Sonitus Reimbursement Story
“I was meeting with a Republican congressman from Ohio and told him the Sonnetus experience I just shared with you about not getting reimbursement. He actually wrote a bill to try and get CMS to approve new technologies that would reduce the cost of health care…”
Garfinkel: Arboretum Lost Trust in Founders Only Twice Across 55 Companies
“It's happened to us twice where we've invested and the company's gone sideways and it would, we really lost trust in those CEOs only twice out of 55 companies, which is pretty amazing, but it was enough for us to learn.”
Garfinkel: Bioengineering Majors Are Now Approximately 55% Women
“It's more like 55% women, which is terrific, and when incoming college students now, a lot of them go into bioengineering, and many of them are women, which is fantastic.”
Garfinkel: Eli Lilly spun out eight device acquisitions into Guidant
“Eli Lilly decided to spin out these eight companies that they had ultimately bought into a new company through an IPO, and that was called Guidant. So Eli Lilly owned 20%. The New York Stock Exchange public markets owned 80%.”
Garfinkel: Michigan used $70M in tobacco money for healthcare startups
“So Michigan got seventy million dollars and they said, let's see if we can create a whole nother industry here. So they started what was called the Life Science Corridor, and they were giving grants and loans to a whole bunch of healthcare startups.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Jan's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 CAPITAL ALLOCATORSLEDGER | Founder and Managing Partner, Arboretum Ventures | 1 | 19 | 33% 2/6 | full record on Capital Allocators → |