Aegis Ventures to Expand Work With Northwell Into Digital Consortium

Aegis Ventures, a New York-based venture studio focused on health IT and healthcare artificial intelligence, plans to develop a “Digital Consortium,” a group of health systems partnering to build, launch, and deploy digital health products addressing challenges in care delivery and operational efficiency.

The organization’s new strategic vision follows a three-year period of co-creation between Aegis and Northwell Health, New York's largest health system, which Aegis said yielded new companies and fostered a strong foundation of practical insights and engagement frameworks upon which to build the consortium and its objectives. Aegis did not name other health systems that would be joining the consortium. 

To coincide with the new strategy, Aegis announced that David Feinberg, M.D., chairman of Oracle Health, has joined as senior advisor. At Aegis, Feinberg will play a role in advancing the company's vision of developing cutting-edge health tech solutions that address pressing challenges in close collaboration with health systems. John Noseworthy, M.D., (President and CEO Emeritus of Mayo Clinic) will chair the Digital Consortium and work closely with its founding members to leverage their respective strengths and identify ways the partnership can advance the strategic plans of each system.

"Healthcare is about people caring for people, and it's built on trust. Throughout my career, I've been driven by a passion for leveraging technology to enable more affordable and equitable systems of care," said Feinberg in a statement. "As they work towards a more sustainable future, health systems can and must play a central role in architecting the next generation of health tech innovation. I am thrilled to support Aegis as we partner closely with health systems to reimagine the experience of healthcare for patients and caregivers.”

In November 2021, Marc Paradis, vice president of data strategy at Northwell Health, described the partnership with Aegis as bringing their joint resources together — the clinical expertise of Northwell and the commercialization capabilities of Aegis — to develop AI companies that address issues in healthcare quality, health equity, and many of the other crises that exist in healthcare. 

“The intent is to bring together clinicians, researchers, patients and payers to identify the most pressing problems that that need to be addressed today,” Paradis added. “As part of this, Aegis intends to invest at least $100 million of seed-stage funding through the partnership to catalyze a significant multiple of that amount from the venture capital and broader investment community, ultimately accelerating the speed with which new life-saving AI solutions can reach the patient bedside.”