Irit Yaniv

Dr. Irit Yaniv is a physician-turned-medtech executive and investor with more than two decades of experience spanning the venture capital, medical device, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries. She began her career as an operator, rising through increasing responsibilities in the life sciences and ultimately serving as CEO of medical device companies Impulse Dynamics and MetaCure. Her operating background covers managing product development from inception through launch, designing and running clinical studies, securing FDA regulatory approvals, and driving commercial growth — the full arc that she now underwrites as an investor.

She joined Accelmed in 2012–2014, where she became a Venture Partner managing the firm's venture fund and taking hands-on roles — as Chairperson or active board member — across Accelmed Ventures' portfolio companies. Within Accelmed she led portfolio company Eximo Medical from pre-clinical development through its acquisition, and she previously served as Executive Director and Chairperson of Accelmed's Innovation Hub. Accelmed Ventures II is a roughly $100 million fund focused on pre-revenue Israeli and global healthtech startups in medical devices and digital health.

Beyond her investing career, Dr. Yaniv is an entrepreneur herself, having co-founded medical device startups Digma Medical and NitiNotes. She is also the Founding Partner, Chairperson and CEO of Almeda Ventures, described as the first healthtech-focused public R&D partnership, whose units trade on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (ticker AMDA). Almeda invests in medical devices, digital health, and bioconvergence, and had backed roughly 13 companies as of late 2024.

Dr. Yaniv holds an M.D. from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and an MBA from the Recanati Business School at Tel Aviv University. She is a frequent speaker at medtech and cardiovascular innovation forums, including the ICI (Innovations in Cardiovascular Interventions) meeting and the PMNET Forum.

• Invests in healthtech — medical devices, digital health, and bioconvergence — backing companies solving large, systemic healthcare cost and demographic problems.
• In her own words on the market opportunity: *"In recent years there is increased global demand for breakthrough technological healthcare solutions, due to increasing expenditure, estimated at trillions of dollars in the US alone, pronounced population aging and an increased prevalence of cancer and chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease."*
• Focus on pre-revenue and growth-stage companies: those in advanced clinical trials, nearing FDA approval, or at initial commercialization — the "financing gap" between early venture and acquisition-readiness. (Note: this differs from the pure seed/angel framing; Accelmed/Almeda operate as institutional healthtech funds, not casual angel investors.)
• Check size around $8–10M per company including follow-on capital (Accelmed Ventures II); Almeda typically participates in Series B rounds.
• Prizes a clear path to regulatory approval and strategic acquisition by major medtech players — she looks for companies she can help commercialize and shepherd to exit, consistent with the Eximo playbook.
• Takes an active, operator-led role, frequently serving as Chairperson or board member and applying her CEO-level experience in clinical development, FDA strategy, and commercialization.