Triple Ring’s CEO, Joe Heanue, was featured in a white paper authored by Glenn Snyder, MedTech Practice Founder and Partner at Monitor Deloitte. The article revisits and updates a topic that Deloitte has been monitoring since 2017 – The disruption and evolution of investment in early-stage medical technology. In the MedTech innovation landscape, startups are increasingly caught in a precarious position—trapped between early funding rounds and the long, challenging journey of developing a market-ready product. This journey can span a decade or more, with financial, regulatory, and reimbursement hurdles adding layers of risk and uncertainty. To navigate this environment, alternative financing models such as build-to-buy are emerging as promising solutions. Under this model, a strategic MedTech company agrees to acquire a startup—or its assets—at a predetermined price once certain milestones are reached. For large MedTech (and Life Science) corporations, outsourcing innovation to a startup can create an off-the-balance-sheet way to fund innovation – avoiding internal R&D expenses and protecting EBITDA. For startups, these structures help derisk funding, provide access to market expertise, access to manufacturing and commercialization teams, and provide a possible path to exit.
To check in on this evolving investment landscape, Deloitte interviewed 16 leaders from VC, PE, CVC firms, and strategic investors, focusing on five critical topics shaping medtech financing today. These insights underscore the growing recognition of alternative financing models and their role in supporting early-stage medtech companies through a complex commercialization journey.
The white paper can be found by clicking this link
