CBIV Closes $58M First Close of $125M Women's Health Tech Fund II
TL;DR
Toronto-based Cross-Border Impact Ventures (CBIV) has closed $58 million toward the $125 million target for its second fund, the Women's and Children's Health Technology Fund II, with a final close expected in 2027. The fund backs Series A and B health technology companies building medical devices, diagnostics, therapeutics and AI-enabled digital health tools for conditions that affect women and children specifically, differently or disproportionately, writing checks in the $2 million to $5 million range. Backers include development finance institution KfW (on behalf of Germany's BMZ), the Skoll Foundation via Capricorn Investment Group, Ceniarth, the Equality Fund via RockCreek Group, and Wire Group, several of whom doubled down after Fund I. The raise matters because it shows blended, mission-aligned capital is still willing to underwrite a category — women's and children's health technology — that mainstream generalist VC has historically underfunded, and it arrives on the back of a real proof point: Fund I's Sonio was acquired by Samsung Medison in 2024 for a reported $92.7 million.
Key Takeaways
This is blended capital, not typical VC fund formation. KfW's return as a concessionary investor is the tell — it is structured to accept a lower risk-adjusted return so that other LPs in the fund get better downside protection and higher potential IRR. That is development-finance architecture layered onto a commercial VC vehicle, and it is precisely the kind of structure that lets foundations, OCIOs and family offices underwrite a thesis that pure return-maximizing LPs would otherwise pass on.
The LP base reads like a who's-who of patient, mission-driven capital. Skoll Foundation (through Capricorn), the Equality Fund (through RockCreek) and Ceniarth are not generalist fund-of-funds chasing the next AI multiple — they are capital allocators built around gender equity and impact mandates. Several are repeat backers from Fund I, which is a stronger signal of conviction than any amount of press-release language, because it means LPs saw actual portfolio performance and came back for more.
A first close at 46% of target, with a two-plus year runway to final close, is a deliberate pace, not a struggle. Impact-oriented and development-finance-anchored funds routinely raise in tranches over multiple years because their LP base includes institutions with long internal approval cycles. Targeting a 2027 final close for a $125 million fund that started raising well before this first close suggests CBIV is optimizing for LP quality and structural fit over speed.
Fund I's track record — one real exit, two FDA clearances, and reach into 32 countries — is doing real work to de-risk Fund II. Sonio's sale to Samsung Medison, Cardiosense's FDA De Novo authorization, and mOm Incubators' FDA clearance are concrete, verifiable outcomes rather than vague "impact" claims. That is the evidence base CBIV needed to convert a first-time impact fund into a repeat-manager franchise capable of raising a larger vehicle.
Fund Overview
Fund Name: Women's and Children's Health Technology Fund II
Fund Size: US$58 million first close toward a US$125 million target (final close expected 2027)
Stage: Series A and Series B
Check Size: Approximately US$2 million to US$5 million per company (per CBIV's Managing Partner, reported by BetaKit)
Geography: Global, with a base in Toronto, Canada, and a stated emphasis on North America, Europe and emerging markets; the firm has not yet made a Canadian investment but says it is actively looking
Focus: Health technology — medical devices, diagnostics, therapeutics and AI/ML-enabled digital health — addressing conditions that affect women and children specifically, differently or disproportionately, spanning sexual and reproductive health, maternal/newborn/child health, general and chronic disease, and health software infrastructure
Key LPs: KfW (on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development/BMZ), the Skoll Foundation (OCIO: Capricorn Investment Group), Ceniarth, Equality Fund (OCIO: RockCreek Group), Wire Group, plus family offices and high-net-worth individuals
Why This Fund Matters
Women's and children's health technology has long been treated by mainstream venture capital as a niche rather than a category, despite representing what CBIV pegs as a $625 billion current market opportunity, growing to $1.1 trillion by 2035. That mismatch between market size and capital availability is the entire thesis behind CBIV's existence, and Fund II is a bet that the gap is finally starting to close — not because generalist VCs have had a change of heart, but because a specific pool of mission-aligned capital (development finance institutions, gender-lens foundations, and family offices with health equity mandates) has matured enough to write institutional-scale checks into specialist managers.
The involvement of KfW, acting on behalf of Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, is significant beyond the dollar amount. Development finance institutions typically anchor funds in emerging or frontier markets, but KfW's role here as a concessionary capital provider in a Toronto-based, globally focused health-tech fund reflects a broader trend of DFIs using blended finance structures to catalyze private capital into underserved health categories in higher-income markets too, not just low-income ones. That structure — where one LP accepts worse economics so others get better ones — is a signal that women's and children's health technology is still considered too underpriced-by-the-market to attract capital on pari passu terms alone.
It also matters that this raise is happening against a genuinely difficult fundraising backdrop for life sciences and healthtech. Broader venture data has shown steep year-over-year declines in life sciences funding activity in several markets, and the past few years have seen public skepticism toward ESG and impact-labeled investing more broadly. CBIV's own read, articulated by its Managing Partner, is that the LPs who care most about women's health didn't disappear during that pullback — they simply went quieter about their commitments. A $58 million first close, with repeat LPs increasing their stakes, is reasonably strong evidence for that read, at least within this specific niche.
Finally, the timing lines up with an inflection in what's investable. AI-enabled diagnostics, at-home testing platforms, and non-invasive monitoring technologies — the kinds of companies CBIV backs — have gone from research curiosities to FDA-clearable products in the last several years. Fund I's portfolio already shows that trajectory: an AI ultrasound company acquired by a strategic, a non-invasive heart failure diagnostic with FDA authorization, and a diagnostic tampon platform moving through NHS pilots. Fund II's stated plan to add an integrated climate lens and to selectively invest earlier suggests CBIV believes the opportunity set is widening, not narrowing.
The Team
CBIV was founded in 2021 by Managing Partners Annie Thériault and Donna Parr, who remain the firm's public-facing leaders on Fund II. Thériault holds a PhD in Management from the University of Toronto's Rotman School, is a CFA charterholder, and holds the ICD.D governance designation; before launching CBIV she was Chief Investment Officer at Grand Challenges Canada, giving her a background that spans both traditional capital markets investing and global health innovation financing. Parr brings more than 30 years of venture capital, growth equity and private debt experience, including managing biotech-focused vehicles GrowthWorks Canadian Fund and Canadian Medical Discoveries Fund, and roles at major Canadian pension funds OMERS and CPP; she currently sits on the boards of Constellation Software and Topicus.com and also holds the ICD.D designation. Megan Dover, a co-founder of the firm, serves as Partner and has led much of CBIV's impact investing, venture advisory and financial planning work. The broader team includes a Managing Director of Emerging Markets, an Investment Director, a Chief Financial Officer, and dedicated ESG and health-impact staff, backed by a scientific advisory board of clinicians and global health specialists. The firm is headquartered at the MaRS Centre in Toronto — Canada's largest urban innovation hub — reflecting its position as one of the only specialist managers in the country focused exclusively on women's and children's health technology.
Early Portfolio
Fund I, a $90.3 million vintage-2021 vehicle, backed 11 healthcare technology companies spanning maternal and fetal health, neonatal care, cardiovascular disease, oncology, respiratory health, reproductive health and gut health. CBIV says the portfolio has reached more than 356,000 women and children across 32 countries. Publicly named portfolio companies include Sonio, a Paris-based AI-powered fetal ultrasound software company that was acquired by Samsung Medison in 2024 for a reported $92.7 million — Fund I's headline exit to date. Cardiosense, which develops non-invasive cardiovascular monitoring technology, received FDA De Novo authorization for its PCWP Analysis Software, addressing forms of heart failure that CBIV says affect roughly 1.5 million women in North America. mOm Incubators, maker of a low-cost, portable neonatal incubator, received FDA clearance and has deployed devices in hospitals and humanitarian settings, reaching an estimated 18,000 patients. UK-based Daye has built a diagnostic tampon platform for HPV and vaginal health screening that is being piloted through the UK's National Health Service and expanding into North America and Sub-Saharan Africa, with clinical validation work completed in the UK, Tanzania and Nigeria. Other named Fund I companies on CBIV's website include Oxford Cancer Analytics, Pendulum, Raydiant Oximetry, OncoLens and Axena Health. CBIV has not yet made an investment in a Canadian company despite being based in Toronto, a gap the firm says it hopes Fund II will help close.
What This Means for Founders
Founders building Series A or B-stage medical devices, diagnostics, therapeutics or AI-enabled digital health products where the target population is disproportionately women, children or adolescents should have CBIV on their list — particularly companies with a credible path to regulatory clearance and a commercialization story that can plausibly extend beyond a single high-income market. CBIV's stated preference for "good line of sight to commercialization and regulatory approval" suggests it is not the right fit for pre-clinical or purely discovery-stage science; it wants products close enough to market that the next 24 to 36 months are about scaling, not proving a concept works.
The real differentiator founders should weigh isn't just the $2 million to $5 million check — that's a fairly standard Series A/B allocation. It's the platform around it: active board participation, help with FDA and other regulatory strategy, non-dilutive financing connections, and — distinctively — an impact platform explicitly built to help portfolio companies expand into underserved and lower-income markets alongside high-income ones. For a medtech or diagnostics founder trying to figure out how to sequence a US FDA clearance against an emerging-markets rollout, that dual-market fluency is not something most generalist Series A investors bring to the table.
Fund Momentum Take
The most interesting thing about this raise isn't the dollar figure — $58 million toward $125 million is a solid but unremarkable first close by pure numbers — it's the LP list. When a fund's cornerstone backers are a bilateral development bank, two foundation OCIOs, and a family-office-adjacent impact allocator, you're looking at a manager whose capital base is fundamentally more patient and mission-tethered than a typical Series A/B specialist fund. That's a structural advantage in a category like women's and children's health technology, where regulatory timelines and clinical validation cycles routinely run longer than a standard VC holding period tolerates. It also means CBIV's LPs are less likely to bail during the kind of ESG-skeptical macro cycle the industry has just been through, which the firm's own commentary about "quieter" continued support seems to confirm.
The risk sitting underneath this fund is concentration of proof points. One real exit (Sonio) and two FDA clearances (Cardiosense, mOm Incubators) across 11 portfolio companies is a genuinely good showing for a debut impact-oriented fund, but it's still a thin sample to extrapolate a repeatable, scalable return profile from — especially for a strategy that explicitly wants to write smaller, earlier checks in Fund II. Femtech and pediatric health technology also remain categories where exit liquidity is less proven than, say, enterprise software; strategic acquirers like Samsung Medison exist, but they're not as numerous or as reliably active as acquirers in more established health-tech subsectors. CBIV is also still without a single Canadian portfolio company despite a Toronto address and a MaRS office, which raises a fair question about how much home-market dealflow actually exists at the stage and price CBIV wants to pay.
Our bet: this fund closes above target, likely in the $125 million to $150 million range, given the pattern of returning LPs increasing commitments and a genuinely differentiated positioning in a category most generalist funds still avoid. The bigger long-term question is whether CBIV can convert Fund II into a track record strong enough to attract non-mission-driven, purely return-seeking LPs for a Fund III — that's the real test of whether "women's and children's health technology" becomes a mainstream venture category or stays a specialist niche serviced by a handful of managers like CBIV.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Cross-Border Impact Ventures' Fund II actually investing in?
Fund II invests in Series A and Series B health technology companies — medical devices, diagnostics, therapeutics and AI-enabled digital health tools — that address health conditions affecting women and children specifically, differently or disproportionately, across sexual and reproductive health, maternal/newborn/child health, chronic disease and health software infrastructure.
How much has CBIV raised so far, and what's the target?
CBIV announced a first close of US$58 million toward a US$125 million target for the Women's and Children's Health Technology Fund II, with a final close expected in 2027.
Who are the key limited partners in Fund II?
Named LPs include KfW on behalf of Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Skoll Foundation via its outsourced CIO Capricorn Investment Group, Ceniarth, the Equality Fund via its outsourced CIO RockCreek Group, and Wire Group, alongside unnamed family offices and high-net-worth individuals.
What was the track record of CBIV's Fund I?
Fund I closed at US$90.3 million in 2021 and invested in 11 healthcare technology companies. It produced one strategic exit — Sonio's acquisition by Samsung Medison in 2024 for a reported $92.7 million — plus FDA clearances for portfolio companies Cardiosense and mOm Incubators, and reach into 356,000 women and children across 32 countries.
Who leads Cross-Border Impact Ventures?
CBIV was founded in 2021 by Managing Partners Annie Thériault and Donna Parr, with Megan Dover serving as Partner and co-founder. The firm is headquartered at the MaRS Centre in Toronto, Canada.
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