London, UK - May 02, 2019 -- Joyance Partners, a venture capital partnership that invests in early-stage companies that deliver delightful moments, announced today its expansion into Europe and the addition of three new team members.
"We’re extremely pleased with the companies we’ve seen in the US and are excited to expand our search for companies that contribute to individual health and happiness to Europe," said Mike Edelhart, Managing Partner of Joyance Partners.
Since its founding in 2017, Joyance Partners has made over 50 investments related to the emerging science of health and happiness. These include personal thermostat Embr Labs; on-body fluidics lab Epicore Biosystems; microbiome leader DermBiont; medical AI innovators Gyant and Lark Health; NeoSensory, which lets one human sense stand in for another; female pleasure products maker Unbound; and Wynd Technologies, which delivers pure air to any individual person or across acres.
As the first venture fund centered on delightful moments — the small quanta of time that brings greater joy, confidence, calm, control, and absence of anxiety or pain — Joyance works with entrepreneurs ready to replace today’s syndrome-centric approach to human health and happiness with something more personal, preventative, predictive, and ultimately, more powerful.
To lead its European efforts, the fund has appointed Paolo Pio as Managing Director of Joyance Partners Europe. Paolo has decades of technology experience, most recently as head of product and business development at Cisco for Europe, and then Asia/Pacific. He has also been an active angel investor.
“The European startup scene is growing rapidly, and it needs funds like Joyance to provide the kind of support and capital necessary at the very early stages,” said Pio. “I’m excited to be joining an incredible team with such a dramatic and unique mission, which I feel very strongly about professionally and personally.”
To support the fund’s growth, two additional team members have been brought on: Holly Jacobus (Investment Partner, NY) and Jun Deng, PhD (Investment Partner, Silicon Valley).
Research increasingly notes connections between happiness and health:
The 2018 World Happiness Report indicates that of the 80% of workers who feel extreme stress on the job, nearly half say they need help in learning how to manage stress. Job stress is also more strongly associated with health complaints.
A recent study at Harvard Medical School points to positive emotions as strongly correlated to longer and healthier life.
In a 2010 study released in the European Heart Journal, for each one-point increase in positive emotions a patient had expressed, their heart disease risk was 22 percent lower.
According to a UC Berkeley article summarizing recent science-based research on meaningful living, happiness not only strengthens the heart, but it also strengthens your immune system, combats stress, and results in fewer aches and pains.
In a time of unprecedented anxiety, the need for a release from the associated tension, fear, confusion and anger is more essential than ever. Joyance focuses on emerging science and technology with the potential to deliver these uplifting experiences.
“We have been gratified that the first year of investment for Joyance US resulted in so many strong, young portfolio companies, some still at the lab stage, pioneering new science that can dramatically improve health and longevity — and with those improvements, expand personal happiness,” said Edelhart. “We’re eager to bring our unique moment-of-inception investment approach to Europe.”
Europe has the deep science and educational richness to become a central source for companies globally that enable and create delightful moments. Joyance EU will work actively with universities, government organizations, accelerators, angel networks, and venture funds to uncover Europe's future powerhouses — in Genetics, Bio, Neuro, Microbiome, VR/AR, Next/Gen Consumer Goods, Food, and Robotics — driving the transformation of individual health and happiness.
About Joyance Partners: Joyance Partners is a venture capital fund focused on emerging science and technology that can help individuals feel happier, healthier, calmer, more confident, and less anxious or subject to pain. Joyance Partners US is directed by Managing Partner Mike Edelhart and Founding Partner William Lohse, who also oversee the Social Starts venture capital partnership funds.
Contact: Nicole Staudinger
nicole@joyancepartners.com
+01-503-891-5628