Blayke Hale

According to the latest report from Rock Health, digital health funding in Q1 2024 totaled $2.7B across 133 deals, with an average deal size of $20.6M. It doesn’t break out device-related investments, but most medtech founders I meet these days are being forced to chase tiny rounds made up of endless little checks, consuming valuable energy and slowing their progress. The benign neglect of this next generation of diagnostic and therapeutic devices is counterproductive and surprising. Given the crowded virtual care market, for example, I’d expect more such companies would be exploring medtech partnerships, investments or acquisitions that'd enable them to back integrate into delivering sharper, and more differentiated, care and treatment. This is exactly what Maverix Medical is doing from the other direction: Reshaping the entire spectrum of lung cancer care by integrating more advanced + effective approaches to screening and diagnosis, treatment and therapeutics, and even palliative care…And putting it all to work through an innovative provider network. One notable investor exception is Y Combinator partner Surbhi Sarna who’s been backing great teams like Selera Medical (YC W24) doing foundational work on ambitious medical devices. Without more support from investors like her, we’re going to increasingly find ourselves stuck with the incremental portfolio improvements from the incumbents, and that’s just not nearly enough.

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Incredibly excited to share our updated Healthcare AI thesis. This is not a market map – in 4,000 words, we dive deeply into the research, products, business models, and market entry points that are reimagining healthcare with AI. More specifically, we cover: • Translating AI research into real-world products • Mapping modalities (software, copilots, agents, services, diagnostics, therapeutics) to problems in healthcare • Designing AI business models that unlock billion-dollar markets • Closing current gaps in healthcare AI infrastructure • Distinguishing AI platforms from point solutions Let us know what you think ⤵️

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In our latest publication in Health, Management, Policy, and Innovation – "Why AI Is Good for Our Health but May Hurt Our Wallets," we examine how current regulatory frameworks, reimbursement structures, and business models for AI in healthcare are decoupled, creating an environment in which AI may significantly increase costs without necessarily improving outcomes. We recommend three interconnected reforms to unlock the full potential of healthcare AI: (1) Rigorous pre- and post-deployment evaluation to verify proposed clinical value, (2) Development of assessment standards through shared guidelines, and (3) Strategic alignment of AI deployment modalities with sustainable business models – "modality-business model-market" fit 👉 https://lnkd.in/d8NiczyM Sneha Shah Jain, MD, MBA, Clinical Professor and Kevin Schulman Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, Nigam Shah, Chief Data Scientist, Michael Pfeffer, Chief Information and Digital Officer, and Linda Hoff Chief Financial Officer at Stanford Health Care

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Looking beyond #VC funding for your #startup? Aakash Shah of Wyndly (YC W21) reveals how he built a multi-million dollar #healthtech company using creative capital strategies. Learn how he leveraged Y Combinator's network and alternative funding methods to revolutionize allergy treatment. In case you missed it, you can watch the #FundraisingDemystified #podcast here: https://lnkd.in/eZT63YS4

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Open-source models can be a strong lever for increasing gross margins at AI companies, especially those that have hefty cost structures (e.g., enterprise sales orgs that require significant customer success or implementation resources, as well forward-deployed AI services models common in healthcare and life sciences). One of many reasons to maintain a modular and flexible stack with minimal dependencies when building an AI company. More on the importance of flexibility in the AI stack: https://lnkd.in/eA2XATRk h/t Delip Rao #ai #artificialintelligence #generativeai #healthcare

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✨ Breaking: Dimension Capital Announces New Fund.- Dimension Capital Dimension II, a $500 million fund launched by Dimension Capital, focuses on companies at the intersection of life sciences and technology. It targets investments in biotech platforms, software tools, therapeutics companies, lab infrastructure, clinical development, manufacturing, and commercialization, as well as AI and machine learning. The fund plans to make about two dozen investments, ranging from single-digit millions to over $40 million, supporting startups, growth-stage companies, and even publicly traded biotechs. https://lnkd.in/dyYPCgKg Please share to let other #Founders know For the ❤️ of Startups #Fusion42 #Startups #Venturecapital

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Suppose you are a VC, Early investor, or CIO trying to keep your eye on the industry trends. In that case, you’ve probably heard already about hallucinations, context shifts, and accuracy measurement problems in LLMs. These scary concepts kill motivation to invest in LLM-based projects and build RnD departments. Are they really so scary? Yes, but just for now, you have a good strategy to cope with them. Is this strategy already known? Yes, old but still one of the most effective approaches- knowledge graphs in combination with fresh new RAGs will allow you to keep your models free of hallucinations, stable in accuracy, and easily adaptable for context change. Btw, do you know that knowledge graphs are seeing as one of the most impactful AI enables during this year?🙌🏻 How big companies like Deutsche Telekom and Microsoft are seeing the future of LLMs adoption you can find here https://lnkd.in/d4B3t56z

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Excited to partner with Antonio, James, and the XP Health team. The need for vision care and benefits in the United States is substantial. More than 200M U.S. adults (79%) use a form of vision correction. 2 out of every 3 U.S. adults have some type of vision care coverage, even those with 20/20 vision. Vision benefits are considered table stakes for employers, who are generally not likely to sacrifice this coverage even during economic uncertainty. Yet, it dominated by 2-3 outsized legacy vendors and encumbered with horrible customer experience and exorbitant out-of-pocket costs for consumers. XP Health is revolutionizing the experience of eyecare across eye exams and eyewear shipping, through a digitally native product that significantly enhances customer satisfaction through personalized care and reduces out-of-pocket costs. Read the full TechCrunch article: https://lnkd.in/ggVicTHm QED Investors Amias Frank Shruti Adams Laura Ashley Rachel Nigel

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No founder wants to pitch a VC with no cash.  That’s why we’re sharing the list of firms below that have fresh capital to deploy. 🔴 Barcelona based Asabys Partners closed its second $201.3M fund to invest in biotech, med-tech, and digital health companies. 🔴 Chicago based ARCH Venture Partners closed its thirteenth $3B fund to focus on biotechnology companies. 🔴 Palo Alto based DCVC closed its third $400M biotech fund to back data-driven life science businesses. 🔴 Miami based Boldstart Ventures raised its seventh $250M fund to invest in enterprise infra and SaaS startups. 🔴 New York based The Fintech Fund raised its second $10M fund to focus on founders with strong backgrounds in building financial products.

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Forget about flashy revenue projections or $100B market size, it’s all about the go to market strategy. Early stage healthcare investors need to understand how a company navigates the 0 to 1 phase of the commercialization journey. Otherwise, 0% of a $100B market...is still worth zero dollars. Here are some questions we at The Healthcare Syndicate like to ask founders: (h/t to Omar M. Khateeb for the excellent video on early market adopters) 1️⃣ Capturing 1% of the market? Why not 15%? Capturing 15% of the market, not just 1%, is critical for crossing the chasm from early adopters to the mainstream. Investors should evaluate the founder's ambition to capture a significant part of the market, and ask how they plan to get from early adopters --> mass market. 2️⃣ How will you [the founder] lead sales? In the early stages, emotional appeal and vision drive sales to market innovators. A corporate sales hire might scale later, but a founder’s passion resonates best with first movers. 3️⃣ Are you leveraging your early adopters properly? Innovators are essential for early traction, but they’re not the best advocates for the mainstream market. Startups must nurture innovators into credible key opinion leaders (KOLs) to gain mass-market acceptance. For more insights, check out the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gyfzfxjv #healthcareinnovation #venturecapital #angelinvesting

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🧬 This week's Austin Bio & Health Roundup features nearly $200M in funding & new capital, M&A, more infrastructure coming, & hopefully an opening of the Texas Bio & Health IPO window🧬 💰 Funding Function Health has closed its Series A, securing $53M in total funding. Function’s platform offers 100+ tests for $499 per year, focusing on prevention and empowerment. The round was led by a16z Bio + Health and includes several celebrity investors. Congrats to Mark Hyman, MD, Pranitha Patil, Jonathan Swerdlin, Mike Nemke, Seth Weisfeld, and Dan Swerdlin. Sensi.AI raised a $31M Series B led by Insight Partners and Zeev Ventures to enhance its 24/7 monitoring technology for seniors and home care. Way to go Romi Gubes and the entire team! Ironspring Ventures raised $100M for their second fund, focusing on “manufacturing, construction, transportation, and energy.” Exciting times for Ty Findley, Adam Bridgman, Peter J. Holt, and the expanding Ironspring team! Now, why include this in a Bio & Health newsletter? I believe there will be a value migration from drugs, devices, and diagnostics to the bio innovation tech stack itself. One key area of that stack is biomanufacturing. As new modalities like cell and gene therapy rise, the challenge of scaling these therapies presents a significant opportunity for innovation. While as far as I know Ironspring hasn't invested in this subsector yet, I look forward to seeing what they do with Fund 2. 🤝 M&A and Partnerships Significo, a software development that builds healthcare apps and solutions, acquired Bunch, an AI leadership coach app. Congrats to Rick McCartney and team! 🚀Launches, Expansions, and Milestones BrainCheck, a cognitive assessment software platform, announced their adoption by the Physicians Hearing Network (PHN), bringing insights to 270 members across 12 states.  Keep up the momentum Kim Rodriguez and team! 🏗️ Infrastructure Texas State University is partnering with Concept Companies to build a life sciences incubator at their round rock campus. The incubator will have labs, offices, admin support, and collaboration spaces. The teams hope to complete construction by the end of 2025. DES Architects + Engineers opened a new office in Austin, aiming to bring their expertise to the city’s burgeoning life science market. Welcome Kevin D. Norman, Tracy Wong, and the rest of the DES team! 🚩 Texas Bio Triangle Fort Worth-based biopharma company Actuate Therapeutics, Inc. is preparing for an IPO, targeting a raise of about $50M. What’s Next? #AustinNext #LifeSciences #Healthcare #Biotechnology

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💡Benchmarks in the investment industry serve as a standard for measuring the performance of securities, mutual funds, or investment managers. They provide a reference point for analyzing allocation, risk, and return of a portfolio, enabling investors to make informed decisions. Thanks Peter Walker for keeping us all informed!! Can’t wait for this!! Follow and get on the waitlist for this one! #benchmarks #fundraising #Capitalraise #founders #womenshealth #femhealth #medtech #wellness

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Is Epic the Apple of electronic health records? You can see some similarities: - dominance among a premier market segment - a "walled garden" style ecosystem with strong control over third-party plugin development - occupies a strategic and brand position focused on user data privacy HTD Health's Interoperability and Data Liquidity Practice Lead Brendan Keeler was quoted today in POLITICO on feisty dispute within the world of health data exchanges. Brendan Keeler, interoperability practice lead at HTD Health, said in the bigger picture, it doesn’t matter whether Epic, Particle and Intregritort are right or wrong. As long as data exchange is limited to treatment but workarounds are available, he said, people will use the workarounds to achieve business goals. “It’s so lucrative to do so today,” Keeler said. Under TEFCA, organizations that sign a data-sharing agreement and adopt the necessary infrastructure can become qualified networks permitted to share patient health data. Keeler said that TEFCA, which is run by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s nonprofit partner, the Sequoia Project, is supposed to have stronger governance than Carequality and create a unified network pushing data to organizations in addition to groups pulling it from others. Full article here (warning paywall): https://lnkd.in/gkrQK6Fm

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2nd of 5x investment (or acquisition) themes that should rip in Micro SaaS... Personalized Healthcare and Wellness // DEFINITION: Innovations in healthcare and wellness that offer personalized and preventative care. // GROWTH DRIVERS Rising healthcare costs, increasing focus on preventative care, and advancements in health technology. // FOCUS - mHealth and Wearables: Mobile health applications and wearable devices for health monitoring. - Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods: Supplements and foods with health benefits tailored to individual needs. - Telehealth: Remote healthcare services and telemedicine platforms. Anyone going hard at a similar theme?

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Just finished reading "The Next Giant Leap" by Space Capital - a pioneering VC investing in the emerging Space Economy. The report speaks to how SpaceX’s Starship is more than just the most powerful rocket ever built—it is poised to reshape the global space economy in profound ways. With its immense payload capacity, reusable design, and lower cost per launch, Starship will unlock entirely new industries and transform existing business models. But how should industries and businesses evolve to align with this paradigm shift? 📈 Rethinking Business Strategies & Supply Chains - For businesses, Starship represents an era of mass-production over precision engineering. This means moving away from the focus on mass efficiency toward cost-effective, redundant, and scalable production. - In terms of supply chains, this opens opportunities for new players in manufacturing, materials, and space components. The demand for off-the-shelf parts and non-aerospace suppliers will rise dramatically. 💡 New Use Cases & Opportunities   The opportunities Starship unlocks go beyond launching satellites. - In-space manufacturing of high-value products like pharmaceuticals and advanced materials that cannot be created on Earth. - Mega-constellations of satellites for global broadband, expanding on what Starlink has already begun. - In-orbit assembly and servicing, allowing for larger space structures like telescopes or even habitats to be built in orbit, radically reducing costs. - Lunar infrastructure and resource extraction will become more viable, paving the way for sustainable human presence on the Moon and, eventually, Mars. 📊 What Should Businesses Do Now?   1. Embrace Redundancy & Scale – Instead of focusing on one-off, high-cost solutions, businesses should embrace redundancy and mass production.    2. Simplify Design – With Starship’s payload capacity, there is less pressure to optimize for mass efficiency. Simplified, scalable designs will allow for faster production and iteration cycles, akin to how SpaceX rapidly tests and evolves Starship itself. 3. Develop Strategic Partnerships – Collaborating with forward-thinking space startups, suppliers, and even non-aerospace sectors will be essential to capitalize on the opportunities Starship provides. 🌌 A New Era of Innovation   Starship will democratize access to space, lowering the barriers for businesses to create and scale. The next decade will witness breakthroughs in scientific exploration, energy production, and in-space transportation that we can only begin to imagine today. #SpaceEconomy #Starship #Innovation #SupplyChain #Manufacturing #SpaceTech #Entrepreneurship #FutureOfSpace https://lnkd.in/gNdbwXdq

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💡 When we started Caresyntax over a decade ago, AI wasn’t the hot topic it is today. But even back then, we believed in its transformative potential. AI can be just a buzzword, or a powerful tool to drive measurable change in patient care. Fast forward to now, AI-focused healthcare companies now command 2-5x higher valuations than their non-AI counterparts, with some reaching EV/ARR multiples of 30-50x. These numbers show that beyond the hype, there are signals of the industry’s interest in embracing AI-driven solutions that deliver results. These innovations matter because healthcare’s $1 trillion administrative burden and growing labor shortages demand smarter, scalable solutions. Early benchmarks show that these AI-driven models are scaling 2-3x faster than traditional SaaS, with sales cycles shrinking to less than 6 months, compared to the typical 12-18 months in healthcare. But let’s not forget: AI is only as valuable as the outcomes it delivers. Whether it’s automating medical scribing, enabling back-office efficiency, or delivering real-time surgical insights, the goal remains the same: empowering healthcare teams and enhancing patient care. After all, it’s not about having AI in your name; it’s about the results you deliver. 🌐 The digital age is here - let’s make it count! #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareInnovation #FutureOfHealth #DataDrivenCare

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