DEFTA Partners

DEFTA Partners has funded technology companies since the 1980s and now operates from San Francisco, Tokyo and Hong Kong. The firm says it has taken companies from several continents to international success, and that it has invested in more than 100 companies across the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, Bangladesh and Japan. It describes its role as hands-on: it brings global expertise that helps portfolio companies scale internationally.

A health focus built on communications technology

Today the firm sees new opportunities where information and communication technology meets biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and other healthcare fields. Its stated vision is to enable every person to live a healthy life until the last moment, and it invests in companies developing advanced therapeutics, health ICT and the enabling technologies behind them. A separate unit, DEFTA Healthcare Technologies, was launched to fund and grow companies with this aim.

The "pervasive ubiquitous communications" idea

In the late 1990s the firm predicted that the underlying structure of information technology would move away from a computation-centric model toward what it calls pervasive ubiquitous communications. It credits that view with guiding successful companies in embedded devices, digital television and online security. Its founder, an archaeologist who started a fibre optic display company as a Stanford graduate student in 1981, funded early firms that the site calls first of their kind: Viagene in gene therapy, Isis Pharmaceuticals in antisense therapy and Arris Pharmaceuticals in bioinformatics.

Growth in developing markets

Sustainable growth in developing countries is another stated goal. In Bangladesh, the firm works with BRAC, which it calls the world's largest non-governmental organization, in a joint venture named bracNet that runs an internet service provider.

Portfolio examples

The site shows recent portfolio activity in medical technology. Aegle Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing extracellular vesicles as therapy, and has received a US Department of Defense research grant to support clinical work on a candidate treatment for severe burns. Abilitech Medical, based in Minneapolis, makes a wearable device that supports the shoulder and elbow of people with limited arm movement, with software that adjusts spring tension to help lift light objects. QuantuMDx has announced a collaboration with Ontera to combine rapid sample preparation with a nanopore biosensor, aiming to help clinicians detect bloodstream infection and drug resistance at the bedside.

DEFTA Partners is a venture investment firm that has been funding technology companies since the 1980s. It has offices in San Francisco, Tokyo and Hong Kong and works with companies in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

What DEFTA Partners does

• Venture investment: identifies and funds companies with new technologies.
• Healthcare focus: invests in advanced therapeutics, health ICT and enabling technologies.
• Global expertise: helps portfolio companies expand internationally.
• Development work: includes a joint venture with BRAC in Bangladesh to run an internet service provider.

Clients

Companies in information and communication technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and other healthcare fields.

Key facts

• Offices: San Francisco, Tokyo and Hong Kong
• Active since: the 1980s
• Portfolio: more than 100 companies in the US, UK, Israel, Bangladesh and Japan
• Founder: George Hara