Welcoming Ruby Kleyer Back to BVNZ: Bringing Global Healthcare Insights to New Zealand Deep Tech

Here at Bridgewest Ventures New Zealand, we are delighted to welcome Ruby Kleyer back for her second tour of duty as Investment Manager. 

After spending nearly three years shaping our investment pipeline during her initial stint with us, Ruby spent the last two years in London expanding her international expertise as an Associate with Marwood Group. She now returns to Auckland with a further sharpened analytical toolkit, a deep understanding of European healthcare systems, and a renewed focus on building world-class deep tech companies.

Here is a look at Ruby's work in the United Kingdom, how her overseas experience has elevated her commercial toolkit, and what she is planning for her next chapter with BVNZ.

Bringing Learnings from European Health Markets to NZ

During her time in London with Marwood Group, a premier healthcare consultancy, Ruby supported due diligence efforts on large-scale European healthcare transactions. In her role, she worked primarily with private equity clients, supporting deal diligence on assets spanning medical devices, pharmaceuticals, health services, and social care.

Her work focused on policy, regulatory, reimbursement, and commercial due diligence, with a particular emphasis on Europe's largest healthcare markets, including the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany. This experience gave her a deep understanding of how European healthcare systems operate, how medicines, medical devices, and healthcare services are funded, and the importance of aligning products and services with reimbursement and funding structures to achieve commercial success.

Ruby now brings these learnings back to New Zealand, hoping to apply her experience to support healthcare and life sciences startups as they develop global regulatory, reimbursement, and commercialisation strategies. Her understanding of European healthcare systems helps founders better navigate the complexities of international market entry and position their technologies for success in publicly funded healthcare markets.

“European Health systems are complex and each Member State has nuances of its own. The experience has definitely helped me to understand what success in these markets takes, and how influenced success is by the policy and regulatory environment that these business operates in. Its also given me real practical skills in finding reimbursement data for med devices and pharmaceuticals and insights into EU and Member State level regulatory drivers and trends that are influencing M/A activity across Europe which I hope will be helpful in supporting med tech and therapeutic companies in NZ”

Applying Late-Stage Rigour to Early-Stage Ventures

Private Equity backs mature businesses with products in market, established customers and strong financials. The early-stage deep-tech companies we invest in at Bridgewest are, by contrast, often pre-product and still shaping the commercial path they'll ultimately take.

“In a late-stage PE transaction, the work is largely about verification and downside protection, defending existing market share, and confirming the durability of an asset's long-term value through exhaustive analysis. In early-stage venture investing, that track record doesn't exist yet. The job shifts from validating past performance to forming a view on future potential - the strength and adaptability of the team, the credibility of the technology, the size of the opportunity, and whether the business can realistically get from where it is today to a fundable, scalable company.”

Having seen what successful companies look like at the mature end of their journey makes that forward-looking judgement much sharper. It gives you a clear picture of the destination, allowing you to work backwards to identify the milestones an early-stage company needs to reach, the risks that are likely to emerge as it scales, and the capabilities it should begin building well before they become critical.

"Doing diligence on very mature companies is a completely different exercise - the risk tolerance and the depth of analysis are very different from the early-stage. But seeing what those businesses look like gives me a clear sense of what success actually requires in healthcare, and what our portfolio companies need to be preparing for now to get there."

Why Bridgewest Ventures and What Comes Next

While staying in the UK long-term was an option, the draw of the New Zealand lifestyle brought Ruby back after two incredible years abroad. When it came to her professional career, returning to Bridgewest Ventures was a seamless choice.

“I had always hoped I would make my way back to Bridgewest Ventures. Coming back really does feel like returning to a team that supports your long-term growth and I am so excited to get stuck back in.”

“What makes Bridgewest Ventures unique is the true operational follow-through. We partner with founders, build alongside them, and care deeply about the operational success of the business and that is what really excites me”

For her first six months back in the office, Ruby is launching straight into our new investment pipeline and evaluating incoming opportunities. Over the long term, her goal is to evolve into an operating partner role where she can step directly into portfolio companies to assist with governance, strategy, and operational challenges.

We are thrilled to have Ruby back in the team and look forward to the impact her elevated skill set will bring across our deep tech portfolio.