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Dr. Toby Cosgrove, the retired CEO of Cleveland Clinic, has joined Nirvana Healthcare Ventures in Pepper Pike, Ohio, as an advisor.
Founded in 2021 by longtime Cleveland financial manager J. Burner Crew, Nirvana Healthcare Ventures has raised $60 million in commitments for its first fund, Nirvana Healthcare Venture Fund I, according to a LinkedIn post.
Nirvana Healthcare Ventures plans to use its fund to make Series A investments in promising health care startups in Cleveland and the greater Midwest.
"We have a growing culture of innovation, ample seed funding from nonprofit investors and incubators and a recent influx of venture professionals looking for opportunities outside their traditional coastal hubs" in Cleveland and the Midwest, said Marc Byrnes, chairman emeritus of Oswald Companies, the Cleveland-based risk management and insurance firm, in a video at Nirvana Healthcare Ventures' website.
"There has never been a better time to launch an ambitious, private Series A health care fund focused on the Midwest, a fund capable of sourcing the right deals, bringing together the right co-investors from inside and outside our region, and helping the right kind of companies scale their growth," said Byrne, who also is an advisor and board chairman for the VC firm.
Nirvana Healthcare Ventures has recruited some heavy hitters from Cleveland Clinic to help advise on its future investments:
- Dr. Frank Papay, the plastic and reconstructive head, neck and craniofacial surgeon who led America's first full facial transplant.
- Dr. Marc Penn, the cardiologist who helped pioneer and commercialize several innovations in his field, while developing parallel careers as an inventor and healthcare investor.
- Dr. Raymond Rackley, a pelvic reconstructive surgeon, biomedical engineer and life-science industry consultant.
New advisor Cosgrove served as the Clinic's president and chief executive officer from 2004 to 2017, leading the health system's revenue to $8.5 billion from $3.7 billion. Cosgrove also helped launch efforts to improve patient outcomes and expand services, the VC firm said.
Prior to becoming an executive, Cosgrove was a cardiac surgeon at the Clinic and the world's go-to guy for procedures such as mitral valve repairs, according to a Plain Dealer article about his CEO appointment.
He also is an inventor who held 18 patents at the time he became the Clinic's CEO, the Plain Dealer reported.
Cosgrove, who retired from Cleveland Clinic at the end of 2017, also is an advisor for the surgical intelligence company Theator, which is based in Palo Alto, California.
He kept his rank as Ohio's highest-paid health system CEO in 2018 — a year after he retired — with total compensation of $8.7 million, according to analysis by Columbus Business First, a Cleveland Business Journal sister publication.
