Oak HC/FT raises $600 million for second fund

Oak HC/FT has raised $600 million for its second fund. This is the VC and growth equity firm focused on healthcare and financial technology, which spun out of legacy Oak Investment Partners back in 2014. The new fund is a bit larger than the firm's $500 million debut vehicle, which is partially a reflection of wanting to bring in some new strategic limited partners, like an association for retirees and some insurance companies.

Risk management: Oak HC/FT appears on first glance one of the few non-biotech VC firms that directly aims at regulated industries, although it mitigates such risk on the healthcare side by not going after anything with binary FDA or reimbursement risk.

Fintech future: There has been talk that fintech startups may soon face M&A challenges because Trump-era deregulation could remove a lot of the banking sector's incentive to innovate. But Oak HC/FT partner Tricia Kemp isn't worried: "I'd argue that the digitization of payments and transactions and needing to know your customers -- in terms of things like anti-money laundering -- are only going in one direction. Trump is mainly talking about capital requirements for banks, which could possibly affect the direct lending space, but not most of fintech."