Cleveland·Miami·Basel·Tel AvivForce Multipliers  ·  Elevate Humanity
LeverVenture
Operator-led growth equity

The bridge between venture capital and private equity.

An operator-led U.S.-based life-sciences growth fund — co-investing alongside world-class institutions that underwrite the science, entering at the commercial inflection point, accelerating growth and actively de-risking each asset with hands-on execution toward near-term exits.

Venture-scale upside, growth-stage risk.

Read the 2026 thesis How we grade
01 / 11  ·  The firm Life sciences and healthcare  ·  AI as the accelerant
§ 02  /  11
The bridge

Three seats at the table. We are paid to hold the hardest one.

Venture capital underwrites whether a thing can work. Private equity underwrites whether a thing that works can be optimized. Between them sits the passage in which a proven technology becomes a company, and that passage is the whole of our mandate.

Figure 1The bridge
Mid-market growth equity
01

Venture capital

Underwrites the science.

Risk
Technical
Owns
The proof
Horizon
Open-ended
02

LeverVenture

Underwrites the commercial inflection.

Risk
Execution
Owns
The build
Horizon
Defined
03

Private equity

Underwrites the optimization.

Risk
Financial
Owns
The margin
Horizon
Fixed

Figure 1 states the seat, not a claim about any single transaction. Companies arrive at the middle seat from either side, and the work in that seat is operating work.

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Strategic focus

One mandate, five places it shows up.

Life sciences and healthcare is the whole of the mandate. Inside it we look for the same shape every time: technical risk retired, commercial risk live, and a management team that would take an operator on the cap table over a board observer.

Life Sciences & Healthcare, with AI as the accelerant inside the mandate.

The mandate, stated once

Saving, extending and improving lives: from early detection and diagnostics through to personalized treatment across biotechnology, longevity, and physical and mental rehabilitation.

Artificial intelligence is not a sixth sector on this page and is not a sector in the fund. It is the layer that compresses the timeline inside each of the five below, and it is underwritten that way.

One mandate does not mean one sector. The strongest companies inside the mandate rarely sit in only one: a medical device that is also deep tech, a care platform that is also digital transformation, a clean tech or agtech company built around a health outcome, often with artificial intelligence as the layer that makes it work.

We underwrite the whole company as a single object, not only the half that fits a label. That reach across sectors, on top of the artificial intelligence layer, is part of our moat. About 46 percent of billion-dollar exits between 2023 and 2025 span two or more sectors, and a single-sector fund can diligence only the half inside its mandate.

Figure 2The mandate
Five sub-sectors
01Biopharma & TherapeuticsBIO · RX · CELL & GENETherapeutics with human data in hand, where the remaining work is manufacture, trial execution and the commercial organization that has to carry the asset.
02Diagnostics & Precision MedicineDX · GENOMICS · DATATests that change what a clinician does next. Analytical validity is the easy half; the hard half is clinical utility, reimbursement and the ordering habit.
03Devices & RoboticsMEDTECH · SURGICALCleared or approved hardware short of a commercial organization, where scale-up, supplier qualification and the first reference accounts set the date.
04Digital Health & DeliveryCARE OPS · RCMSoftware inside a regulated clinical workflow, where the buyer is an institution, the evidence bar is real, and distribution decides the winner.
05Longevity & NeuroAGING · BCI · REGENERATIVENeurotechnology, brain health and the biology of aging, including physical and mental rehabilitation, where the science is furthest ahead of the business model.
The accelerant

Artificial intelligence runs under all five, not beside them.

Discovery, triage, imaging read, trial design, evidence generation, clinical workflow and the commercial motion itself. We underwrite AI where it shortens a specific timeline in a specific company, and we discount it where it is a description of the software rather than a change in the economics.

Two clinicians in navy scrubs reviewing a brain MRI at an imaging review desk, the scan traced by an analysis model's segmentation outline.

Sub-sector is a starting filter, never the thesis. Mandate fit is decided on stage, size and the condition above, in that order.

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LeverSolutions
LeverSolutions

Decades of operator-grade execution, wrapped around the check.

LeverSolutions is the operating wrap on every position: the work a company would otherwise have to hire, learn or survive. It de-risks the plan, pulls the timeline in, and offsets fees against real delivery.

The bench is not advice sold back to the company. It is a group of operators placed against a named gap, staffed from day one, named in the investment documents, and reviewed on the same cadence as the financial plan.

Four pillars carry twenty-four named workstreams. Scope is chosen from that list before anybody signs, and the engagement letter states which lines are live, who owns each one inside the company, and the date the work is finished. Nothing is invented after close.

Fees are offset against delivery, so the wrap has to earn its place in the plan every quarter. When a gap closes, the bench stands down rather than staying on the payroll.

  • StaffedFrom day one, against a named gap
  • ScopedTwenty-four workstreams, chosen before signing
  • ReviewedOn the financial-plan cadence
A senior operator walking a medical device assembly line at first light, one hand on the guard rail.
Decades of operator experience, on the floor rather than in the deck.
The wrapFour pillars
Twenty-four workstreams
01

Strategic commercialization

Go-to-market design, pricing, channel architecture, key-account capture, and payer or specifier strategy.

Revenue architecture built by people who have run a commercial organization and owned its revenue target, not advised on one.

Six workstreams
02

Operational excellence

Manufacturing scale-up, supply chain, quality systems and regulatory, and finance and FP&A maturity.

The unglamorous half that sets the ship date, and the half most often missing when a plan slips.

Six workstreams
03

Expert teams and network

Senior recruitment, board placement, fractional CXO cover, and scientific and medical advisor sourcing.

The people a company needs before it can afford them, placed against a named gap rather than a title.

Six workstreams
04

Efficient capital use

Non-dilutive capital, bridge structuring, secondary facilitation and mergers and acquisitions advisory.

Making the balance sheet do more work, so the next round is a choice rather than a rescue.

Six workstreams
Two people walking a production floor together, one carrying a clipboard, beside a line of equipment.
The wrap at workAfter the investment, not instead of it
Learn more about LeverSolutions
Two gowned technicians working at a biosafety cabinet in a GMP cleanroom.
Controlled environmentGMP cleanroomWhere the evidence is made
§ 05  /  11
How we grade
The LeverRating markOn every rating, report and file

The LeverRating. One scale, six dimensions, a stated verdict.

Every opportunity is scored on the same house framework and written up the same way, so two deals a year apart are comparable and a decline is as legible as an approval. The framework declines. That is the point of having one.

Figure 3The scorecard
Worked example
Subject  A
An illustrative composite
Not a portfolio company
71
Composite / 100
Conditional proceed

The red tick marks 60, the floor of the conditional band. Below it the house answer is a pass or major conditions, and it is written down as such.

Figure 3.1   The six-dimension house framework, applied to Subject A
DimensionWeight ScoreWeighted Scale
Team256015.0
Market208016.0
Product208016.0
Traction157010.5
Financial10606.0
Thesis fit10757.5
Composite100 71.0
Figure 3.2   The house bands
ScoreRatingHouse answer
90 – 100ExceptionalStrong proceed
75 – 89StrongProceed
60 – 74ModerateConditional proceed
Below 60WeakPass or major conditions
Where six becomes ten

A regulated asset gets its own rulers.

For a device, a diagnostic or a therapeutic, the six dimensions expand to ten so that regulatory position, clinical evidence, reimbursement and freedom to operate each carry their own weight instead of being blurred into a single product score. Both rulers are run, and a rating that only holds under one of them is reported as unresolved.

What it is used for

The number is the summary, not the work.

Behind every rating is a written diligence file: the claim, the primary source that settles it, and the open items that would change the answer. Names are never published, and neither are the files.

Subject A is an illustrative composite built to show the instrument. It is not a company, a portfolio position or a live opportunity, and the scores are not a rating of anything real.

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People

Investors by trade. Operators by record.

Two Managing Partners who have built and run the companies this fund underwrites, an investor-relations team, and an advisory bench with clinical, capital and corporate depth.

Managing Partners

José Vasquéz

José Vasquéz

Managing Partner

Former Chairman of JumpStart Inc. He has founded, scaled and exited companies across media, nutrition, real estate and human-resources technology, and owned the revenue line in every one of them. What he brings to a position is that operating experience at scale, investment acumen, an advanced diligence capability, and technology and artificial-intelligence expertise. He invests the way he operated: inside the business, on the plan, alongside the management team.

Focus
Value creation, technology and artificial intelligence, operating and finance discipline
Diligence
Advanced diligence capability, applied to every position we underwrite
Coverage
The United States, from Cleveland and Miami
Full profile
Peleg Chevion

Peleg Chevion

Managing Partner

Three decades of operational leadership across agriculture, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, climate, food and defense. He has spent that career doing the work this seat requires: strategic partnerships, licensing and business development, executed transaction by transaction. He sits with a company as an operating partner and a growth strategist rather than as a name on its board. A corporate finance and intellectual property attorney, an INSEAD MBA, and a former Air Force officer in aerospace. He also brings strong private equity experience.

Focus
Strategic partnerships, licensing and business development
Role
Operating partner and growth strategist
Coverage
Europe and Israel, from Basel and Tel Aviv
Full profile

Investor relations

Ana Delgado

Ana Delgado

Investor Relations

Ana brings more than a decade of entrepreneurship and cross-border operations across Brazil and the United States, with a background in healthcare administration and ongoing studies in nutrition. In investor relations at LeverVenture, she is the first point of contact for investors across Latin America, carrying each relationship from first conversation through ongoing reporting.

Focus
International investor relations
Coverage
Latin America, primarily Brazil

Investor relationships are held at the partnership. They are not published, and they are not passed to a placement desk.

Advisory Board

Portrait of Dr. Rakesh M. Suri, MD, DPhil

Dr. Rakesh M. Suri, MD, DPhil

Former President and Chief Executive Officer

A cardiac surgeon and health-system executive. He led Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi as President and Chief Executive Officer and served as Cleveland Clinic's first President of International Operations, and was earlier Professor of Surgery and Chair of the Enterprise Robotic Practice at Mayo Clinic. He practices today at Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital. A Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate from Oxford, he holds more than 15 patents and has published over 340 peer-reviewed papers across a career of more than 7,000 cardiac procedures.

What they bring
Clinical plausibility · Trial and evidence design · Health-system operations
On the bench for
Clinical plausibility, trial and evidence design, and whether a device or procedure survives contact with a real operating room.
Career
Portrait of Sherry P. Witter

Sherry P. Witter

Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer

She co-founded the Witter Family Offices in late 2011 and runs both its investment arm and its operations. The office oversees a proprietary global portfolio of alternative investments across liquid and non-liquid positions and global commodities, invests directly alongside management teams, entrepreneurs and other institutional investors, and is headquartered in New York City with teams in Los Angeles and Austin.

What they bring
Long-horizon underwriting · Family-office capital · Direct co-investment
On the bench for
The long-horizon holder's read: how a growth-stage position is underwritten, held and carried through, and what a family balance sheet needs to see at each of those moments.
Career
Portrait of Dr. Eran Gefen

Dr. Eran Gefen

Vice President and Head of Medical and Scientific Affairs, OTC

He leads medical and scientific strategy for Haleon's over-the-counter consumer health portfolio: the evidence that has to hold behind a product somebody buys without a prescription, in every market it is sold in. Before Haleon he ran global medical affairs and pharmacovigilance for Abbott's medicines business, a role that put him across safety systems, labeling and post-marketing evidence at global scale. He holds our strategic advisory seat for healthcare and life sciences.

What they bring
Medical and scientific affairs · Safety and pharmacovigilance · Strategic licensing
On the bench for
Medical and scientific affairs, safety and pharmacovigilance systems, and what a large strategic actually requires of an asset before it will license or acquire it.
Career
Portrait of Mitchell Presser

Mitchell Presser

Co-Chair, Global Corporate

A partner at Morrison & Foerster in New York, where his practice covers mergers and acquisitions and private equity, with particular depth in food and agriculture. He was a founding partner of Paine Schwartz Partners and head of United States mergers and acquisitions at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.

What they bring
Deal structure · Governance · Exit path · Acquisitions
On the bench for
Deal structure, governance and the exit path, read from the acquirer's side of the table rather than ours.
Career

Each advisor is listed under the office they hold and the question they are here to answer. The marks show the organizations named in each biography and belong to their owners. Showing a mark does not mean that organization endorses the fund.

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Service partners

The bench behind the platform, named against the work it does.

A fund is only as institutional as the people who audit it, administer it, paper it and staff it. Each partner below is listed against a scope of work rather than shown as a badge.

Figure 4Service bench
Scope of work
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Research

The State of Growth Equity

Our annual read on the passage between venture capital and private equity: who is funding it, what it costs, and where the companies that stall in it actually stall.

2026 edition  ·  First edition

The State of Growth Equity

01The middle seat, sized
02Where the capital actually sits
03The commercial inflection, measured
04Operating wraps and what they are worth
05What breaks in the passage
Executive summary  ·  15 pages
Full report  ·  192 pages
Published annually from 2026
Executive summaryFree  ·  No form

The findings, the method and every chart that carries one. Complete, not a teaser, and the same text that opens the full report.

Read the summary
The full report192 pages  ·  By request

The complete data set, the underlying method, the company-level tables and the appendix. Sent to your inbox as a private link, open for five days.

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§ 10  /  11
Insights

Written by the people who did the work.

A field clinical specialist guiding an operating-room nurse through the setup of a newly delivered device console.
Field note04 Sep 2026  ·  9 min

The commercial inflection is an operating problem wearing a finance costume.

Read the note

Companies at this stage rarely fail because the model was wrong. They fail because the first commercial hire reported to the founder, the pricing was set by the first customer, and nobody owned the number. The fix is unglamorous, it is available, and it is almost never funded.

A diligence file open under a single desk lamp
Diligence21 Aug 2026  ·  6 min

What a decline looks like when it is written down properly.

A pass that names the four dimensions carrying the downside is worth more to a founder than a polite no, and it costs us nothing but the discipline to write it.

An empty avenue at dusk between two office towers
Capital14 Aug 2026  ·  7 min

The passage is not underfunded. It is funded by the wrong seat.

Venture money prices technical risk and buyout money prices financial risk. The company in between carries execution risk, and neither instrument is built to underwrite it.

A ridge observatory at first light
Operating07 Aug 2026  ·  5 min

Scale-up is a supplier problem before it is a factory problem.

The qualification calendar, not the capital plan, sets the date a growth-stage manufacturer can actually ship at volume. It is knowable a year ahead and it is rarely modeled.

Read all insights
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Contact

One message, read by a partner.

Founders, co-investors, institutions and prospective limited partners all reach us the same way. There is no switchboard and no shared inbox behind this.

Reach usOne form
One reply

Tell us what you are building, or what you are looking for.

Every message lands with a Managing Partner and a copy goes to the team address, so nothing sits behind one person's calendar. A first reply usually comes inside one business day, and it comes from a named person.

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