Healthcare startups across the southeast now have a new source for possible investment: Excelerate Health Ventures.

The new angle investment fund has raised $5.1 million in commitments for a Physician Fund, the group said Monday.

The focus of Excelerate is seed and early-stage startups across the southeast. 

The new fund is the latest boost to early-stage capital in the Triangle and North Carolina. Triangle Angel Partners is a new fund, and Bull City Ventures is raising its first fund for early-stage as well as later-stage ventures. 

Its founders are Gary Abrahams and Bobby Bahram, who are entrepreneurs and angel investors in healthcare.

Abraham served as an executive at former Triangle tech firm MercuryMD.

Bahram was founding CEO of RadarFind.

Both firms were ultimately sold. 

Through a spokesperson, the fund said it would not make any further comments at this time other than those included in a press release.

Among its backers is well-known Triangle investor Bruce Boehm.

“Excelerate Health Ventures is taking a unique approach – bringing the best of what angel investing and venture capital have to offer, and augmenting that with operational experience of the team to build value for both investors and portfolio companies,” said Boehm.

Boehm served as an advisor and “special limited partner.”

The new fund intends to focus on “capital efficient startups that can scale rapidly.”

Dr. Cam Patterson, associate dean of UNC Healthcare Entrepreneurship and Chief of Cardiology at UNC Chapel Hill, also is working with the fund as an advisor.

“Finally, EHV has created a unique opportunity for physicians like myself, who are committed to this marketplace, enabling us to collectively bring new technologies to market and to improve the care of our patients,” Patterson said. “The goal is to use the interdisciplinary knowledge and experience of the extended team to identify and create highly valued relevant healthcare companies in a shortened timeframe, while maximizing return for everyone involved.”

  • Abrahams bio from Excelerate website:

Gary Abrahams has 30 years of sales, marketing, product management, business and market development experience in the healthcare industry for both startups and large corporations. Mr. Abrahams has deep expertise in the healthcare enterprise, mobile, clinical, business and imaging software, services, and medical devices. He was the Global Director of a $400M market leading business for HP Medical; Senior Director of Marketing and Sales for DuPont Pharmaceuticals; VP of Marketing and International Sales for Volumetrics Medical Imaging; VP of Marketing and Business Development for HealthGate Data Corp; GM for t+Medical; and in less than 5 years he grew MercuryMD from inception to $11M in revenue resulting in a successful acquisition by Thomson Healthcare (Truven).

  • Bahram bio from Excelerate website:

Bobby Bahram has over 15 years of operational experience building companies. Mr. Bahram has held executive level positions with various technology based ventures ($80M in total venture capital and institutional financing). He was the founding CEO, and CFO & COO of a healthcare IT, software and services company (RadarFind – tracking of medical equipment and patients in hospitals) that was acquired by TeleTracking Technologies, an international provider of patient flow solutions for the hospital industry. He is an early stage investor; serves as a director on private and public companies; involved in spin-offs and mergers and acquisitions; and has expertise in growing companies in the software, hardware, and services environment. He holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and an MBA.