Darius Fisher

🧬 This week's Austin Bio & Health Roundup features new data insights, key launches, community events, & updates from the Texas Bio Triangle. 🧬 📊 Data Hamza S. from Carta Insights has released their Q2 2024 State of the Markets. You can just feel the Austin vibe as it’s one of the featured regional profiles along with the SF Bay Area, NYC, and LA. (It could also be that I am loud and bug both him and Peter Walker all the time on all the things Austin...nah couldn't be that 😉) From a Bio & Health perspective, Healthtech came in as the 3rd largest sector behind Hardware & SaaS. If we combine Healthtech, Biotech, and Med Device, it would likely jump to 2nd. Reminder: Carta's data captures about half of all startups, so consider these values as representative and relative rather than absolute total. 🚀 Launches, Expansions, and Milestones Love.Life, the integrated health and wellness company co-created by Whole Foods Founder John Mackey, has opened its first holistic health and wellness club in Los Angeles. The club offers personalized care, advanced testing, fitness, and food services to promote overall well-being. When Elon Musk appeared on Lex Fridman’s podcast this past week, he announced that Neuralink has successfully implanted its brain-computer interface device in a second patient. While not headquartered here “yet,” Neuralink's growing presence highlights Austin’s depth as a key player in the neurotech. 🏙️ Community The Greenlight Guru True Quality Roadshow is coming to Austin on September 5th. This event brings together leaders in quality, regulatory, and product development for a valuable half-day of insights and networking. Austin Bio & Health entrepreneurs Lior Eshel Ansher of TestDynamics and Christopher Idelson of ClearCam Inc. will be taking the stage and representing the local ecosystem. Check out the comments for the registration link. 🚩 Texas Bio Triangle Houston based Coya Therapeutics, Inc. is expanding its pipeline and intellectual property portfolio with the filing of new U.S. patents for COYA 301 in combination with GLP-1 receptor agonists. The combo shows promise as a multi-pathway approach to treating neurodegenerative, autoimmune, and metabolic conditions. Congrats Howard Berman, PhD and the rest of the team! What’s Next?

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If you start down the path of #enterpriseimaging – which many health systems are doing (or considering) – "there have to be some objectives and a clear understanding of what you're attempting to do," said Joseph Marion during a recent discussion with Alex Towbin and Lenny Reznik. What you don't want is to go into it with "a false expectation or limited expectation." https://lnkd.in/gg3PkCim AGFA HealthCare #itimaging #healthcareit #enterpriseimagemanagement #patientsafety #patientexperience

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Great time on the Embracing Erosion podcast w/Devon O'Rourke! We talked about: 🚀 How to scale a company from concept to 9-figure exit 🔄 How to break away from the traditional consulting model and apply product approaches ⏩ Why it’s important to iterate quickly and often with messaging 💸📈What signals are important to pay attention to when investing in startups and much more!

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And my second investment at defy is in 🐶 zeroETL puppies 🐶... I mean PuppyGraph, which is all the beauty of a graph database, none of the data migration or continuous upkeep of a graph database. Sounds like magic? So are puppies 🐶 . Puppygraph is NOT a graph or a database. It is graph analytics engine that answers graph questions on your existing data warehouses, whether that is a Databricks datalake, Google BigQuery or postgres. Compared to SQL, it's faster, handles way more complexity, scales and has almost no upkeep. How did I get to conviction? 1. Tailwinds - 🌊 Lakehouses 🌊 have helped enterprises put all their data in one place, enabling Puppygraph to unlock insights previously unavailable. - 📚 LLMs! 📚AI and RAG cannot easily traverse fragmented data. Puppygraph's Graph RAG unlocks insights with their Knowledge Graph and spoonfeeds to the LLMs. 2. 👯 Team 👯 We have graph experts from Google, LinkedIn, Databricks, Tigergraph, and Instacart who are uniquely able to build this solution. 3. 💸 Customers 💸 . My alma mater Coinbase is a proud user. The feedback from my former colleagues was off the charts! A blockchain is very much a graph database and Puppygraph tracks down fraudulent transactions that go through mixers and helps identify patterns. Huge congrats to Weimo Liu Danfeng Xu Lei Huang Zhenni Wu Gary Hagmueller, defy.vc is proud to be an investor!!

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Congrats to these amazing #Colorado Startups! Some fun facts: - In 2023, Colorado’s venture capital scene demonstrated resilience and growth, with $4.3 billion invested across 496 deals despite a national slowdown.  - Colorado's strong network of incubators and accelerators, including Techstars and Boomtown Innovation, provide invaluable mentorship and support, further fueling the region's growth. 1. Opopop - can't wait to try out some of your tasty popcorn flavors! 2. Flatfile - I think every business could benefit from some #data clean-up help. 3. True Anomaly - The Jackal Autonomous Orbital Vehicle (AOV) and the Mosaic intelligent operating system sound like fascinating innovations 4. Strive Health - Kidney conditions? Check them out. 5. revnt - an all-in-one video platform for coaches, webinars + courses. 6. FlightLink - Air pooling platform 7. Leafwire Media - Centralied hub for challenges facing the cannabis business and more 8. Long Play Inc - Wellness brands distributor 9. Bluestaq - data management solutions 10. Quantinuum - Quantum, computing! https://lnkd.in/g4dmXkUM

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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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✍🏼 Codify your process for nurturing referrals It is a tough climate for agencies across the board right now, but among those that continue to win against the hardest headwinds are those that have a well-oiled referral system. For most agencies this is a critical lead source, yet many have no formalised system. This should include defined and relevant incentives, how to create triggers for referrals, how to nurture referee relationships and how to measure impact. This system should sit at the heart of your growth strategy. #agency #newbusiness #businessdevelopment #growth #NBfirestarters

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Charles Hudson is hands-down one of the sharpest minds in early-stage investing. As the Founder and Managing Partner at Precursor Ventures, Charles has backed over 375 companies and supported more than 400 founders. → His portfolio includes hits like Clearco, Juniper Square, and Carrot → He's helped founders raise over $175 million across four funds → He's an active leader in the VC community, serving as the 2023-2024 Chair of the NVCA Board of Directors But even with all of his successes and accolades, what really sets Charles apart is his founder-first philosophy. He's not looking for "coachable" founders who hang on his every word. He wants founders who are decisive, independent thinkers. He believes his job is to give founders what they need, not impose his own agenda. Charles is the kind of investor every founder wants in their corner. One who shows up, follows through, and builds genuine relationships over time. And on this week’s episode of Minimum Viable Podcast, he's sharing his insights on what makes for a truly productive founder-investor partnership. Founders, this is a conversation you’ll want to hear. — What's the #1 quality you look for in an investor? Tune in to the full episode when it drops this Wednesday to hear much more from Charles and learn how to make the most of your investor relationships.

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Congrats to Mairon Sandoval, Manuel Cangas & Team OCN (onecarnow.com) on the successful $86M round of funding (debt and equity), Co-Led by Great North Ventures! OCN, provides a car subscription (rental) service for gig workers in Mexico that provides the strongest financing coupled with a myriad of other services to benefit the driver and their riders. They raised $86 million in equity and debt to fund growth in Mexico as well expand internationally. The Series A round for the company was led by Brazil’s Caravela Capital, Collide Capital, and Great North Ventures on the equity side. New York-based i80 Group led the debt portion of the raise. The proceeds of the round will be used to grow the company’s tech infrastructure, hire numerous positions including bolstering executive team, and of course to finance quite a few more cars. Great North Ventures invested in the earlier Seed round and has watched the company grow very quickly over the past 12 mos. See link for more details about OCN and this round including a link to the coverage from Bloomberg. Nate Pierotti Nick Moran J.R. Moran Brian Hollins Edward Goldstein Rodrigo Basil Andersen Brunna Zogbi Ivan Montoya https://lnkd.in/gg28Cssg

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What is the nature of Austin startup innovation at the early stages? Peter Walker is out with new Carta data on Seed and Series A fundraising by metro & sector. Austin ranks 6th overall with 3.3% of total capital invested, between Seattle and DC. Seattle & ATX again seem to be a tier of their own. Not the first data set where I've seen this pairing & I don't expect it to be the last. Not sure what to make of this trend, yet. When you break it down by sector, the story of what is Austin innovation is beginning to change: 🔹 Healthtech: 4th (5.5%) 🔹 Consumer: 6th (4.6%) 🔹 Fintech: 7th (4.0%) 🔹 SaaS: 7th (3.0%) 🔹 Biotech: 8th (2.3%) 🔹 Hardware: Not ranked (surprising w/ our defense tech boom) ATX’s sector diversity & early stage volume paints a strong future. What's Next?

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Tune in to the latest "The Science Of Business Development" podcast with Alan Stern, where we tackle AI as it pertains to Business Development. Thank you Tony Arce and the TFOCB team for producing!!! To listen: https://lnkd.in/d3ZF_Cvr Discover the secrets to sales as Greg DeKalb and Alan Stern share insights and wisdom on The Science of Business Development Podcast. With a background spanning from selling cars to owning a DJ company, Alan's journey is a testament to the power of perseverance and adaptability in the ever-changing landscape of business. As Greg guides the conversation, we're treated to a feast of actionable strategies and thought-provoking ideas. Alan's innovative methodology, aptly named the HEAT method, is unveiled before our eyes, promising a strategic approach to marketing without breaking the bank. But what truly sets this episode apart is its emphasis on the human element of business. Alan's words resonate deeply as he shares, "People don't buy from brands. They buy from people who represent brands." In a world inundated with advertisements, the key lies in forging genuine connections and building trust. As Alan delves into the four pillars of the HEAT method – humor, education, adding value, and trust – you can't help but feel empowered to apply these principles to your own business endeavors. "When your marketing goes cold, drop some heat," he quips, encapsulating the essence of his revolutionary approach. But amidst all the strategies and tactics, it's the human stories that shine through the brightest. Alan's passion for helping others succeed is palpable in every word, as he shares his journey from humble beginnings to entrepreneurial success. His authenticity and vulnerability serve as a beacon of hope for aspiring business owners everywhere. The episode serves as a masterclass in business development, offering a potent blend of inspiration, wisdom, and practical advice. As Greg and Alan remind us, success in business is not just about numbers and strategies – it's about forging genuine connections and staying true to your values. As you embark on your own entrepreneurial journey, remember the lessons imparted by Greg and Alan. Embrace the power of humor, educate yourself relentlessly, add value to others, and above all, build trust through authenticity and integrity. With their guidance, success is within reach.

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🧬 This week's Austin Bio + Health Roundup highlights significant data trends, my stance on covering funding announcements, new partnerships, and action across the Texas Bio Triangle. 🧬 💰 Funding: The Way I Plan to Cover Funding Announcements You may have seen reports of a local Bio & Health startup’s funding round through an SEC report filing. While some outlets have covered this, my position is not to. I prefer to support our builders directly rather than trolling the filings for scoops. There is plenty of real investigative journalism that our city would be well served by if that is where they focused. Remember I am not a journalist and I am not the media. When the company is ready to announce their round officially, I’ll gladly shout it to the rooftops. 📊 Data Peter Walker at Carta reports that in 2017, Biopharma and Medical Devices captured just under 10% of all VC dollars. By 2023, this figure rose to 17.7%, and in Q1 2024, it reached 24%. The overarching tailwinds favor our sector and region with trends towards Bio & Health and the physical & digital intersection. Energy and hardware, two other sector blossoming in Central Texas, also saw similar share gains. 🤝 M&A and Partnerships Sensi.AI, a 24/7 senior care intelligence agent, is partnering with Caring Senior Service to deploy SensiAI’s platform in Caring’s 50 locations across the US. This partnership allows seniors a better opportunity to age gracefully in their homes. 🚩 Texas Bio Triangle BioMedSA is hosting an event called Women in Bioscience, Thursday June 20th. It’s designed to connect and empower women in the bioscience industry across Central Texas, and features Randi Brosterman Hutchens discussing "Building your Personal Board." Find the link to the event in the comments. Houston-based Lokum, a staffing solution to connect clinicians and clinical staff to health care facilities, has raised a $700K pre-seed round. Congrats Ayoade (Joy) Ademuyewo on the raise. What’s Next? #AustinNext #LifeSciences #Healthcare #Biotechnology

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INTERVIEWS OF 2024 SXSW PITCH WINNERS: Dhavel Patel of Lotus Every March in Austin, 50 of the world's most impactful startups showcase their talents at SXSW Pitch. Today we begin a series of short interviews with some of the category winners from the 2024 event. Founder and CEO Dhaval Patel has been growing Lotus for three years. At this year's SXSW Pitch, his San Jose based startup emerged as the winner of the "Smart Cities, Transportation & Sustainability" category. Patel's short answers to our questions are below. SXSW: What is Lotus?  Patel: A wearable ring that controls objects at home by pointing. See https://www.getlotus.com/ SXSW: What community does Lotus serve? Patel: Folks with limited mobility -- older adults, veteran soldiers, people with disabilities.  SXSW: Who is your all-time favorite entrepreneur? Patel: Warren Buffett. SXSW: Best startup-related advice you have received? Patel: Don't start building first, find the need first. SXSW: Current entrepreneurial trend that excites you the most? Patel: Desire for tech that is intuitive and simple. SXSW: Fail fast or perseverance? Patel: Persevere in failing fast repeatedly. SXSW: Favorite VC? Patel: Andreessen Horowitz. SXSW: Favorite gadget or device? Patel: Apple AirPods. SXSW: Government can best support startups by Patel: Moving faster. SXSW: Most over-hyped technology at present? Patel: AI. SXSW: Most under-hyped technology at present? Patel: Consumer hardware. SXSW: What did you enjoy most about your experience at SXSW? Patel: The people -- each person wanting to make the world a better place. SXSW: What is your best trait as an entrepreneur? Patel: Simplifying complex problems. SXSW: What is your best advice for other startups? Patel: Focus (say "no" to more). Learn more about Dhaval Patel of Lotus plus other 2024 SXSW Pitch winners by listening to the audio of their session at this year's event. See https://lnkd.in/gHtwQB8n Applications for SXSW Pitch 2025 will open in late summer. See https://lnkd.in/gE2hcVPK #sxsw, #sxsw2024, #startups, #founders, Chris Valentine, Dhaval Patel, SXSW, #venturecapital, #entrepreneur, #entrepreneurs, #startup, #founderstories, #sxswpitch, Lotus (Techstars'23), #techstars, #Austin, #ATX, #creativity, #innovation, #hardware, #consumerhardware, #pitch, #accessibility,

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🧬 This week's Austin Bio & Health Roundup highlights new funding, intriguing data, and major commercial & scientific milestones 🧬 💰 Funding Hello Patient, building Gen-AI phone agents for healthcare providers, came out of stealth with a $6.3M seed raise. Congrats Alex Cohen! And it’s Austin funding Austin, with 8VC a key part of the round. Aspira Women's Health, focused on non-invasive AI-powered diagnostics, was awarded a $10M grant from ARPA-H to advance their blood test for endometriosis. Well done, Nicole Sandford, Sandy Milligan, MD JD & team. Maxwell Biosciences, a synthetic small molecule drug platform, received ~$3M from the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC) to find assets that will prevent wound infection on the battlefield. Fantastic work, Joshua McClure & team. Reminder: I don’t cover SEC filings. When the builders themselves announce, I’ll shout it from the rooftops! 📊 Data Clutch VC released its Texas Seed Funding Update (YTD Q3): YTD 387 seed rounds raised for a total $636M. Though deal counts are down QoQ, capital invested has trended upward, making this the highest quarter since Q1 2023. Health was the second largest sector with 27% of all capital raised so far this year, up from 16% during the same time frame last year. Great data & insights Rajiv Bala, Steve Coffey, and Caitlin McHugh. 🤝 M&A and Partnerships Lumos Pharma entered a merger agreement with Double Point Ventures, going private at a $38M valuation. 🚀 Launches, Expansions, Milestones, and Wins Oracle Health announced updates to its Data Intelligence platform, with enhancements to Clinical, Analytics, and Care Coordination products. 🤠 Texas Bio Triangle Houston-based Coya Therapeutics, Inc. shared positive results from a double-blind study of low-dose interleukin-2 (LD-IL-2) in Alzheimer’s, showing the therapy is safe and well tolerated with promising trends toward cognitive improvement. Amazing Howard Berman, PhD, Arun Swaminathan, and the rest of the team. Dallas-based Stone Mountain Ventures closed a $5M Fund II focused on health & AI. Fund I included Austin Bio & Health startups Legion Health and MDisrupt. Congratulations, John Diaz and keep looking at Austin for new opportunities! Quick Note: Some items this week actually happened last week, apologies if I missed them! Please tag or message me for future announcements so I can make sure to include them. What’s Next?

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There's a lot of wisdom in Tim Lynn's recent interview on The Hard Part with Evan McCann, but one bit (https://lnkd.in/g-r2nZ5H) particularly resonated with me as he explained what Startup TNT is doing: "It's sort of this cycle back into building the community, which then builds the companies, which then pay taxes, which then feeds the communities. That cycle is really where it becomes useful," he said. "It's not just a simple customer relationship. It's an entire ecosystem play. So that's tricky." This feels similar to what we're doing at Taproot Publishing Inc. When you buy a membership or an ad, or when you sponsor a roundup or the new Taproot Edmonton Calendar, you get something in return, but you're also contributing to a more informed and connected Edmonton region. It's an entire ecosystem play, as Tim puts it. The Taproot Edmonton team's work helps the whole community work better. Paying attention instead of just extracting it is not the easiest path. But we're not interested in easy. We're interested in being useful. Many thanks to those who already support that work. If you don't yet but want to, I'll put a couple of links in the comments. Also, the finale of Investment Summit IX is on June 13 if you want to see Startup TNT's ecosystem-building in action. Here's our preview:

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Before you launch a CPG brand with any sort of DTC strategy, make sure you do this… I promise it will take you 15 minutes or less. I see brands going straight into product development and selling without checking a crucial detail: Will the economics actually work if launched as a DTC brand? So many founders dive in because they’re excited about their product. But if they don’t understand the full payback period, they risk serious financial setbacks down the road. We created a simple 15-minute tool to help founders calculate if their DTC model is sustainable. Here’s why it’s worth it: - It considers real margins - It factors in customer acquisition costs - It gives you clarity before you commit Instead of risking time, money, and sanity, get a quick gut check. Spend those 15 minutes and see if your numbers add up. Starting strong is better than starting over. Download the free template below (link in the comments👇).

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🚀 Meet Justin Moore: The Sponsorship Coach on a Mission to Empower Creators In the fast-paced world of content creation, securing sponsorships can be a game-changer. But navigating the complexities of brand deals can be challenging. That's where Justin Moore comes in. As the founder of CreatorWizard and a full-time creator with over a decade of experience, Justin has made it his mission to help creators unlock the potential of sponsorships. His goal? To empower creators to secure one million sponsorships by 2032. Justin’s passion for helping creators is evident in everything he does. Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your content to the next level, his insights and strategies are invaluable. He knows what it takes to build sustainable, profitable partnerships that allow creators to focus on what they do best—creating amazing content. 🔥 Why You Should watch the full episode with Justin: -Get insider tips on securing high-value sponsorships -Learn how to position yourself as a brand magnet -Join a community of creators committed to growth and success -If you're a creator looking to level up, Justin Moore is the mentor you need in your corner. Let's build a future where creators thrive! #CreatorEconomy #Sponsorships #ContentCreation #JustinMoore #CreatorWizard #Entrepreneurship

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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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