Ria Shah

Someone broke down the estimated costs of a $15 Sweetgreen salad. We need these cost graphics for digital health to help future founders. Especially for tech enabled cos, the greatest cost is labor. Much of the "value created" is in curation and matching, which means the gross margins are reliant on labor arbitrage. Pay someone $X, but get paid $X+Y% per visit. The challenge with healthcare is that you often have to pick one of two business models: 1. specialized, low volume, high cost, low gross margin % 2. generalized, high volume, low cost, high gross margin % I'd argue founders should focus on gross dollars over the lifetime of the customer (like Jeff Bezos said) instead of gross margin %'s, but we'll leave that for another time. The challenge is that many tech enabled digital health cos have high cost of goods sold (labor) and moderately high product, design, and engineering budgets. We must build differentiated solutions for patients, clinicians, and clients to be out incumbents, however, we're realizing that companies are ultimately valued on the discounted value of future cash flows. And the high SG&A costs at most organizations might be inbalanced to the unit economics of the business. I'm not sure the math pencils out for everyone unfortunately. But I'm just a guy on the internet, would love to hear the thoughts from those smarter than I (you!). Comment below. --- p.s. I have no idea the accuracy of the graphic and not an investor in Sweetgreen. Cheers. Credit: David Crowther

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Thanks Chinenye. I couldn't agree with you more. However while we work on this, we also have to be mindful of the fact that bias isn't just the problem in this data rather a combination of poor economy and bias. Of all these regions mentioned, Africa is the least performing market. therefore Davidson, naturally you would expect investors to do less there. They are not charity organisations but a venture set up for outsized returns.Therefore the major issue we should be discussing is, which sectors are receiving this funding in Africa? Are the investments coming to sectors that will lift the other sectors up fundamentally or to sectors that will window dress the issues? or Worst still the ones that will reap-off on the people and distort rather than disrupt the system. (eg Nigeria POS fintech and the real banking system. a discussion for another day). Until strong investments are made in the technology sectors powering manufacturing strong job growth in Africa be it REAL B2B eCommerce not repeating what is already being done, or B2C eCommerce that is truly efficient and cost effective. Equally important is the improvement in the purchasing power of the consumers via credit card system. in as much as Sub-Sahara Africa lacks good credit system that captures the average citizens and residents, B2C will continue to struggle. in as much as our logistics investments are predominantly in the last mile delivery rather than efficient crosborder logistics, both B2B abd B2C eCommerce will struggle to scale efficiently and profitability. So, it's time for the investors to do away with the low hanging fruits and start tackling the real issues that will empower and propel Africa economies. That's where the main bias lies.

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What's been happening in mental health? ⏺ Vitalic Health raised a $4M seed round for its geriatric behavioural health care platform. ⏺ Kooth Digital Health landed a $1.45 million pilot contract to provide their Soluna platform to over 50,000 students across New Jersey. ⏺ Peer support startup Fello , led by former Uber Eats executive Alyssa Pollack, raised $10.4M for virtual, app-based peer support designed to combat the loneliness epidemic. ⏺ Oceans Healthcare acquired Haven Behavioral Healthcare , expanding to 5 new U.S. states and adding 7 new locations. ⏺ Mabel raised a €600K pre-seed round to help improve women's mental health through microdosing programs and mushroom-based supplements ⏺ Wysa published a paper on the impact of their early stage digital mental health interventions for Singaporeans. ⏺ Applications for the KHP Ventures Mental Health immersion programme close tomorrow (Jan 7th) (All links below) __ If you liked this and want insights on the mental health industry in your inbox every week, subscribe to The Hemingway Report newsletter and follow me Steve Duke 📩 #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth

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Create Health Ventures Launches Inaugural $21M Fund for Early-Stage Digital Health Startups  Create Health Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage digital health companies, has closed its debut fund, raising $21 million, surpassing its initial target. Launched in 2024, Create Health Ventures is based in Austin, TX, and Chicago, IL. The firm focuses on technologies that enhance healthcare access, improve patient experiences, and deliver value across payers, providers, and pharmaceutical companies. *Its primary focus includes:   1. Payer-Facing Technologies: Solutions that improve member experiences, enable seamless data and workflow integration, and scale technology across geographies.   2. Clinical Trial Enablement: Tools to help pharmaceutical companies recruit and retain participants for late-stage clinical trials as demand increases. *Founders and Approach:   Create Health Ventures was co-founded by Emma Cartmell and Amit Aysola, healthcare veterans with over 45 years of combined experience. They bring operational expertise, regulatory insight, and an extensive network to portfolio companies. The firm exclusively invests in startups led by healthcare industry founders, leveraging its unique value-added platform for scaling businesses.  *The platform includes: - Business development support   - Access to executive coaches   - Connections to healthcare leaders   - Cross-selling opportunities among portfolio companies  *Key Quotes by GPs:  - Emma Cartmell: “Founders from the healthcare industry understand the challenges and opportunities to improve patient outcomes. Supporting them is the most impactful way we can positively transform healthcare.”   - Amit Aysola: “Payers and pharmaceutical companies are driving demand for connected, scalable solutions, and we are investing in companies to meet these needs.”  *Investments and Impact:  The firm has made five investments so far and partners with foundations, impact investors, and strategic healthcare veterans to mentor portfolio companies.  *Portfolio CEO Feedback:   - Dr. Chip Grant (Watershed Health): “Create Health Ventures has been invaluable in scaling operations and fundraising.”   - Shara Cohen (Carallel): “They are the most collaborative and active investor team I’ve worked with.”   - Neil Batlivala (Pair Team): “They’ve helped us manage growth and reach underserved communities.” If you are experiencing difficulties in raising fresh capital and would require warm introductions to new LPs, contact G+QUANT     ▶ Please use G+QUANT's link for inquiries and fund decks, or send your inquiry directly to [email protected] #VentureCapital #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #Startups #ClinicalTrials #PatientCare #HealthTech #HealthEquity #CreateHealthVentures

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LAUNCHING A VC FIRM AS AN UNDERREPRESENTED MANAGER: COURAGEOUS, CRAZY, OR BOTH? 🤔 I read that only 2%-3% of all VC funds are led by Black General Partners (GPs). Maybe that’s why people keep calling me courageous for launching a VC firm as a new Black fund manager. Truthfully though, my whole life feels like one big exercise in doing the hardest $h!t imaginable. But here’s the thing: If you want to make a real dent in the universe, you can’t expect the path to be easy, right? For me, launching Kabila Ventures isn’t just about building a firm—it’s about leveling the playing field for overlooked founder teams worldwide. 🌎 It’s a calling, not a choice. So, to answer the question: Is it courageous? Maybe not. But I’ll admit... I’m definitely a little crazy. Here’s to the crazy ones—the ones who dare to do what others won’t. 🙌🏾 If you’re bold (or crazy) enough to consider launching your own VC firm as an underrepresented manager, check out my video for three tips to help you get started. Let’s build something that matters. 💪🏾 Together. Tally ho! 🤠 #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #DiversityInVC #VCtips #VC

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One of my proudest moments as an investor occurred today as Alaffia Health announced its series A because it shows how the Aperture® Venture Capital vision of multi-level, multi-generational #impactinvesting is succeeding in the marketplace. Here’s the model in its most basic form : ✅As diverse fund managers with meaningful capital to allocate, we are changing the VC landscape every day just by doing our day jobs. ✅As Black/Brown investors with ~40 years experience collectively, Aperture GPs have access to talent /excellence that others do not, so our portfolio *organically* is more inclusive by race, gender and geography even while optimizing for financial outcomes (all about the alpha). ✅Our most successful portco’s are using financial #innovation to solve market problems that impact underrepresented demographics and underserved communities. Alaffia Health is a shining example of the impact portion of our overall fund thesis, and we couldn’t be prouder of TJ Ademiluyi and Adun Akanni, MPH, PMP - the dynamic brother-sister founder duo whose vision we have steadfastly supported on their journey. Congratulations to TJ and Adun from William Crowder and myself, as well as the whole Aperture team- Marjorie King Philip McKenzie Yves Louis-Jacques Tanvi Lal Michelle Dhansinghani Lisha Bell Katie Kelly Amy Chung Cindy Chong, CFA Brian Fernandes-Halloran Monroe France Jayden Pantel Darren Herman Evan Wladis Neal Triplett Thomas Scriven Peter Ammon Irina Bit-Babik Tim Milanich Rob Rahbari

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Today was a big win for consumer health, with Flo Health Inc.'s valuation at $1 billion. We're hearing talk about the market becoming frothy again, but I’d argue—without seeing the detailed financials—that this valuation could be entirely warranted. Flo has built an impressive business, with 5 million paid subscribers and 70 million monthly active users. At $60 per year for users to access the product, this business has hundreds of millions in revenue and plenty of room to grow. It's increasingly clear to me that innovators focused on healthcare have been wildly underestimating consumer business models for years, believing that patients would only opt for solutions covered by their health plans and prescribed or recommended by their doctors. That thesis needs updating, particularly given high deductible plans and soaring co-pays. Innovators building solutions that users genuinely love will win - even in healthcare. These businesses also have the potential to move into B2B channels, which is far easier to do when you have an engaged, loyal user base. I expect we’ll see many more consumer health businesses “pop” in the years to come, further proving that consumers are ready and willing to pay for such solutions. We're watching closely at Cherish Kudos to the team at Flo for this impressive milestone. Lainie Muller Charlotte Yeh Aashima Gupta Avanlee Christine Esther Dyson Alexandra Drane Jessica Kamada Vin Gupta, MD MPA Asheesh Saksena Paul Crnkovich Josh Kampel Steve Chazin Lee Wagner #agingwithattitude #independentliving #consumerdrivencare

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A new era of deep tech has emerged. First time funds will raise “unheard of” amounts of capital to fuel next gen deep tech startups - producing outsized, superior returns for LP’s compared to the rest. Prudent investors will act on this data and shift investment strategy as LP’s or risk being left behind savvy wealth managers and CIO’s / FO’s who saw this trend begin 4 years ago.

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What happened in mental health last week? ⏺ KHP Ventures announced the Innovations in Mental Health Fund, a £20m fund to invest in mental health startups ⏺ Amae Health raised $6m from Cedars-Sinai for psychiatrist-led integrated care and wraparound mental health services for severe mental illness ⏺ Warsaw-based Britenet, received a £1m grant from the EIT - European Institute of Innovation and Technology for Moodmon, an AI driven tool for management and treatment of chronic affective disorders ⏺ Pulvinar Neuro received FDA breakthrough device designation for its closed-loop transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) to treat major depressive disorder ⏺ Czech startup Elin.ai closed a €1m pre-seed round for a mental health app for Gen Z and Gen alpha users ⏺ MindMed announced that their first patient has been dosed in their phase 3 study for MM120, an optimised form of LSD for generalised anxiety disorder after being granted ‘breakthrough therapy’ status by the FDA in March ⏺ Isar Mazer from Tacklit and Jacinta Pollard from Caraniche published an intersting article on how to digitally transform mental health services ⏺ Autism therapy provider Proven Behavior Solutions, LLC acquired Prism Autism Education & Consultation Education and Consultation, expanding into a second state. ⏺ Redesign Health raised a $175m fund to back health-tech startups. Whilst not a mental health specific fund, Redesign have a track record of backing businesses in this space. (All links below) __ If you liked this and want insights on the mental health industry in your inbox every week, subscribe to The Hemingway Report newsletter and follow me Steve Duke 📩 #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth

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More Harbor Behind the Scenes. Working on the first draft and notes of "What is Wrong with VC" based on all the feedback I've gotten and how many people have asked me to write it... Shoutout Andrew (AJ) Tjaden, CCXP, PMP who is now fully on board as our Director of Support!

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Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

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I put down some thoughts on my disenchantment with venture studios in healthcare, quick thoughts on retail healthcare, and an open question of whether healthcare will ever experiment with dynamic pricing You can read it here: https://lnkd.in/enbBaSWC

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It’s NY Tech week and my new favorite thing is teaching underrepresented founders how to talk back to investors. So many of them ask me for help fundraising, and I get it. I may not always think of myself as an expert, since I’m lucky enough to surround myself with people who are much more experienced at it than I am. But we did do it successfully once, raising more than $3M along the way with little more than a deck, a dream, and an incredible founding team. Of course, we’re all aware that this success puts us in the teeny tiny cohort of startups who raise without a traditional-looking founding team. So what’s the common theme in my advice to non-traditional founders at the early stage? Push back. It’s easy to get intimidated by investors. They’re smart, aggressive, and ask really hard questions. It can be hard to remember that YOU are the expert on your market. They are generalists. Even if they have strong opinions on your market, it’s OK to tell them when you think they’re wrong. In fact, if you have the conviction and confidence (plus evidence to back it up), disagreeing with your prospective investors can even be seen as an advantage. When a VC asks you a question at the pre-seed stage about your path to $100M in ARR, it’s OK to say “dude, we’re a pre-seed company. I know what our path is to get to a million, and we will have a lot to figure out after that.” Now, this only works if you have a track record that can support your confidence. Or if you don’t know the answer, but you DO know HOW you’re going to figure it out, talk about the path from experimentation to scalability. It’s better than making up a bunch of stuff that you’ll probably throw out eventually, and VCs will respect your focus and defense of your precious little time. Plus, they can usually tell if your confidence is lacking in your answer, anyway. This investor market is a tricky one, but never forget that they (investors) need you (founders) just as much as you need them. And hey, if you’re an up and coming female or underrepresented founder, and you need some help (or just a pep talk) I’d love to help. Happy Tech Week everyone!!

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It was wonderful to be in conversation with Madison Mills of Yahoo Finance at their annual Invest conference earlier this week. We covered everything from the venture outlook for 2025, impact of elections on women's health investing and innovation, and more. Full clip and summary below 👇 https://lnkd.in/gS67sc2Y

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What happened in mental health last week? ⏺ Anise Health raised $3 million to deliver culturally-responsive mental health care for the Asian American community ⏺ Goldman Sachs acquired autism therapy provider Center for Social Dynamics, a care provider to over 4,700 clients across 20 locations. ⏺ Lyra Health CEO David Ebersman announced that he will be stepping back from his role to care for his mental health. Ebersman will take on a new role as Board Chairman. ⏺ Substance use disorder (SUD) treatment provider BrightView is closing nine facilities in Massachusetts and Arizona citing challenging operating environments. ⏺ California introduced a bill that would require mental health warning labels on social media sites. It would be the first U.S. state to do so if the bill is passed. ⏺ The Australian Medical Association issued a position statement warning that chronic underfunding and increasingly complex patient presentations are pushing the mental health system to a crisis point. ⏺ Ukrainian startup Healthy Mind raised $1 million to launch an AI platform for mental health in the workplace. ⏺ Indian mental health platform GoodLives raised $129,000 in a pre-seed round, offering AI-driven self-directed exercises alongside expert-led therapy sessions. ⏺ We (The Hemingway Report) launched our 2024 founder survey. Link in comments to contribute. (All links below) __ If you liked this and want insights on the mental health industry in your inbox every week, subscribe to The Hemingway Report newsletter and follow me Steve Duke 📩 #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth

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🚀 How do you get a pre-seed or seed round done *quickly* in NYC? ✅ Assemble a list of over 80 of the earliest-stage fund and angel investors in town ✅ Curate a dozen or so of them based on relevancy ✅ Break bread together. That's what nextNYC is doing with Checkwriters--and applications are OPEN. We're looking for pre-seed and seed NYC founders to pitch at our dinner next Wednesday night. The only criteria is that you have to have at least one *professional* investor committed to a currently open round--be it a fund, angel, scout, etc. 🗓 Applications are due *this Thursday*: https://lnkd.in/epJjny4P 🤝 Shoutout to the folks at Orrick Tech and Rho for helping to make this happen: Orrick is a tech-focused law firm passionate about helping entrepreneurs, innovators and investors push boundaries. Through our extensive client portfolio, deal volume, and relationships in the ecosystem, we provide commercial insight to each client’s strategy. From financing to protecting IP to retaining talent to advocating for innovation-friendly public policy, we offer a holistic solution across the tech & venture lifecycle. Rho is the business banking platform with everything founders need to manage their company cash and grow their business. See how they are supporting founders in NYC (https://lnkd.in/ef7uzDQv) – and earn rewards for switching your operating account to Rho.

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Calling all #Founders: Venture Capital Association of Alberta (VCAA)’s Deal Flow Calls represent a great opportunity for #PreSeed to #SeriesA companies to gain exposure to some of the countries most active Venture Capital #investors. If your company is raising equity capital, I strongly encourage you to check out the link below!

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We gathered dozens of operators from the MGMT Boston Operators Club and local founders alongside the 186 Ventures team this October to discuss the evolution of our dear software markets, the status of some predictions for 2024 (all looking good!), and what’s on deck for next year. General Partner Giuseppe Stuto led us through the following predictions for 2025 to share with you all.. ↕ We will see more vertical AI applications manifest themselves within the Enterprise in a similar ways that SaaS moved from horizontal to vertical use cases 🔔 We will see services business models more common and software budget purchasing models less common - SaaS may even be given away for cheap/free as a “way in” ⚖ Capital efficiency, on a relative basis, will almost be required to create enduring & compounding defensible enterprise value. Details like procurement cycle lengths and creativity with non-dilutive financing, like leveraging revenue based financing tools for example, will all matter 💡 Specific to AI, premiums will be placed on applications that can actually get “reasoning” right. All purpose LLMs still have a ways to go and there are multiple approaches with the “jury still out” on how to get context and reasoning right. Infrastructure solutions that use general purpose or customizable knowledge graphs to help application developers get to 100% (enterprise acceptable accuracy) will emerge OR savvy application developers will fill the gaps themselves. We will likely see both, depending upon the specific case! Thank you Giuseppe, Julian, and Sophie for a great discussion and evening!

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Wing Venture Capital's Founder Docs project is a unique collection of startup wisdom, by founders, for founders. The authors of the docs are talented founders themselves, sharing their experience on the topics they are most passionate about. I'd like to highlight the contributions of Edo Liberty, founder / CEO of Pinecone. Edo writes about the special opportunities for the scientist / founder (and he is one of the best of this breed!), as well as some of the risks and challenges they face. I got a lot out of reading Edo's stuff and I suspect you will too! https://lnkd.in/g_wyRMiE

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