That investment may have been a no-brainer. But in a burgeoning industry such as healthcare, with so many different facets, so many types of technologies and so many new startups trying to make their mark, it can be a dizzying challenge knowing where to put money down.

"It's a huge, broad area," says Volpe. "Where do you start? You're handed $500 million, where do you begin to strategize?"

One recent tack, he says, was to assess the broad swath of health IT and corral 40 or so different areas of technology into three categories: mature, growth and nascent.

"I took a look at the top seven in the growth area, and picked two in the nascent area, and started to look at the companies behind those, and mapped the ecosystem within that area," he says.

"For example, one was remote monitoring," says Volpe. "I feel that's a huge area to start to look at now. In the cardio space there's massive potential to reduce the number of strokes with atrial fibrillation patients, to reduce the risk of readmissions.

"We asked, 'Remote monitoring is one thing in the cardiac space, but what is remote monitoring (in general)? What are the companies and gaps that exist today, and how can they get filled?'

"We drew a graph of remote monitoring and the needs around that," he says. "Analytics. Data storage and capture. Registries around cardiovascular. Sleep monitoring. And then we started to invest."

After nearly four years, "I feel like we've got a very strong portfolio of some very innovative spaces and companies," says Volpe. "And we have the ability to maybe pull them together in some sort of way and leverage them where it make sense."

That sort of synergistic utility is what a good VC firm should be looking for, he says – and what a smart fledgling that's looking for funding should be ready to capitalize on.

"The key is to leverage strengths and abilities," he says. "Don't think single-point solution, but rather strategically aggregate: Pull these companies together with others like them. You may not have a crystal ball for what is coming, but if you start to arm these folks with game-changing bundles, it's going to really change what comes along."

Merck GHI tend to gravitate toward later-stage companies. "But everything starts at an early stage, right?" says Volpe.

"A lot of what these younger companies are coming in with is very interesting, and could be a piece of the puzzle, of something larger we're looking at," he says. "If you put an ecosystem together, it might be a missing piece. I tell (companies) to think like that. You don't have to be everything to everyone; you could be a very interesting piece to a larger puzzle."

Ultimately, the difference between a company that attracts venture investment and one that doesn't comes down to fundamentals, says Volpe.

"If you want to be successful, and not be a flash in the pan, there has to be some element of cost reduction or efficiency gain: Making something more convenient or saving money."

Another leg up? If a company helps solve something that's government-mandated, "that's attractive," he says. "HIPAA compliancy. That's a huge CIO issue right now. ACOs are another one. They're coming. What are some solutions in that area?"

Says Volpe: "I've done a lot of deals, so I know what we want to see. You'd better have something that cost-reduces, is efficiency-ready, answers some type of mandated need or helps the reimbursement curve. If you don't have any of those, or you're missing some big piece of your model, you'd better start over or get a better model pretty quickly."

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