Health tech venture firm Windham Venture Partners appointed David Kereiakes as a managing partner. He will lead the firm’s new Cincinnati office, giving Windham a foothold in the Midwest region.

Kereiakes will be working alongside Adam Fine, co-founder, general partner and CEO of Windham Venture Partners.

A former leader of Providence Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Providence St. Joseph Health system in Washington, Kereiakes was instrumental in the closing of several digital health and med-tech deals.

Prior to joining Providence, he helped lead the healthcare investment team at growth equity fund RC Capital.

Throughout his career, Kereiakes has led or co-led more than $250 million in private placements.

“The strategic appointment, bringing David back to Cincinnati, enables Windham to tap into and support the incredible innovation happening in Ohio and other Midwestern states, which often do not receive the same level of attention from investors as do cities like New York, Boston, and San Francisco,” said Fine.

The opening of Windham’s Cincinnati office intends to capitalize on the innovation taking place in the Midwest, a major region with a rapidly rising tech economy that has been underserved by investors.

According to Statista.com, the Midwest receives less than 5% of all VC funding, while New York, California and Massachusetts have taken in over 75% of all VC dollars in recent years. Cincinnati, a metropolitan area where five of the six largest employers are health systems or research centers, is a strong market for health innovation.

Windham, based in NY, has made several exits in recent years, including Cartiva, an orthopedic devices developer sold to Wright Medical Group for $435 million; Personal Genome Diagnostics, a developer of tools for personalized cancer genome analysis, which LabCorp acquired in 2021 for $450 million; and Neotract, a developer surgical devices for urological and gynecological disorders sold to Teleflex in 2017 for $1.1 billion.