Jacob Garfield

TL;DR: Solving a fundamental point of friction in US health care: affordability The LEAD team is excited to back The WiTT Group and Rahul Mahadevan in their latest financing round led by Sopris Capital to expand their impact efforts of distributing non-clinical support to patients more efficiently! "Financial toxicity for patients undergoing treatment in the U.S. healthcare system is a critical issue that needs urgent attention. What excites us about backing WiTT is its platform's unique ability to align incentives across key stakeholders and support patients in need in the community. It efficiently delivers financial and non-financial assistance to patients, driving improved treatment compliance for healthcare providers. We're excited to support their commercial expansion as they grow the most valuable, proprietary patient dataset focused on self-reported social determinants of health." CC: Thomas H. Rudy Kaiwen Liu Matthew Foran Sopris Capital Taylor Paul Abinav Sankar Charlie Regis Kendel Fiorentino

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🧬 This week's Austin Bio + Health Roundup has acquisitions, funding, leader’s insights on national healthcare news, critical new infrastructure, and developments from across the Texas Bio Triangle. 🧬 🤝 M&A and Partnerships Subjectwell, a patient access marketplace connecting patients to clinical trials and treatments, was acquired by Windrose Health Investors.  This acquisition will also provide Subjectwell with additional capital for its next growth phase. 💰 Funding Thoughtful Automation, an AI company specializing in revenue-cycle management tools for healthcare providers, has announced its move to Austin and has secured $12.5M in funding. Congrats and welcome to Central Texas! 💡 Insights from Local Builders and Innovators Michelle Davey, Founder and CEO of Wheel, provided her commentary to FierceHealthcare on the recent exits from the virtual care market by major players Walmart and Optum. Michelle said, “It's not just about being big—it's about the platform that drives the care delivery itself - and how it's purpose-built to scale to mass adoption and repeat utilization." 🏗️ Infrastructure Dell Med is launching a Center for Rare Diseases, focusing on cutting-edge research and therapies. This initiative will support advances in diagnostics and boost awareness, providing critical assistance for patients and families dealing with rare conditions. 🚀 Launches, Expansions, and Milestones The co-founder of artist collaborative Meow Wolf is leaving to launch a new $15M wellness and spa experience in Austin. They are branding it as the “world’s first neuroscience-enabled spa,” bringing a new element to the Austin’s strength at the convergence of bio, health, and tech. 🚩 Texas Bio Triangle First Bight Ventures’ industrial biology accelerator, BioWell, is now seeking its first cohort of 10 companies, with applications due by May 15. The STRONG STAR Consortium has secured $17 million in DoD funding to address brain injuries, PTSD, and related conditions, which will launch 8 programs spanning detection, prevention, and treatment. As always, the news is as varied and dynamic as our region, let’s keep it up! What’s Next? #AustinNext #LifeSciences #Healthcare #Biotechnology

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Hospitals are facing a moment of transformation. While many innovations aim to move care beyond the hospital, these facilities remain central to the healthcare system—and a $2.5 trillion market. The challenge? Balancing growth and profitability, especially for smaller systems under pressure. At @BedfordBridge, we’re digging into how technology can drive meaningful change in hospital operations and care delivery. There’s no shortage of work to be done, but the opportunities are clear.

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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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I recently had the pleasure of speaking with and learning from several software execs from our portfolio companies and industry experts during Thoma Bravo's AI Summit in Miami. It was great to share our insights into trends and practices we see in our portfolio and how we manage opportunities and risks. At TB, we have a long history of guiding enterprise software companies through digital transformation, and we’re already navigating the transition driven by generative AI. Our focus is on managing this new innovation by absorbing the technology to bring meaningful benefits to our portfolio companies and indirectly to their customers. And it’s evolving fast! We see our portfolio companies today using gen AI in generally three ways: first, to create new products and provide customers with incremental use cases. Second, to defend against cyber attacks that have become much more sophisticated by bad actors. And third, as an enabler of talent to make business operations run more efficient and productive. In our view, AI presents a significant growth opportunity, but we also believe that to really maximize that potential, companies should carefully evaluate the risks and be thoughtful about governance, trust, security and data privacy. AI is poised to accelerate innovation and it’s hard to predict the full, transformative potential of AI, but we are confident that some of the advantages of incumbent knowledge and data will be key to unlocking its value.

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Another large funding round in the virtual behavioral health space. It's interesting to note Talkiatry's focus on a physician-centric care model with W-2 providers, as opposed to most of the other players who are delivering care with 1099 mid-level therapists. However, it's still not clear to me how they are measuring care quality and outcomes, which is the foundation of true value-based care.

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Last week, mid-market companies were trading hands faster than picks at the NFL draft. 10 notable MM PE deals from the past week: ➡️ Incline Equity Partners invested in VMG Health, a TX-based compliance, strategy, and transaction advisory firm serving the healthcare industry. ➡️ Serent Capital acquired Medical Informatics Engineering, Inc., a provider of healthcare IT software for the occupational health market. ➡️ Celebrity Coaches, LLC, a TN-based portfolio company of Allied Industrial Partners, acquired Moonstruck Leasing, an entertainment coach leasing company. ➡️ Granite Creek Capital Partners, L.L.C. in partnership with Boathouse Capital, invested in DCG, a full-service strategic comms firm serving federal government clients. ➡️ Apax Digital invested in IANS, a MA-based provider of research and advisory services for the infosec market. ➡️ The Stephens Group, LLC partnered with VisionSafe Corporation - EVAS, a HI-based provider of aircraft cockpit smoke displacement systems. ➡️ Gamut Capital Management is set to acquire DEX Imaging, a provider of managed print services across industries. ➡️ Century Park Capital Partners acquired Total Access Elevator, a CA-based provider of commercial elevator modernization, maintenance, and repair services. ➡️  Shoreline Equity Partners invested in Prime Meats LLC, a GA-based processor and distributor of proteins. ➡️ Family office CC Industries acquires Foremark Performance Chemicals, a producer of formaldehyde and derivatives for the petrochemicals industries. #PrivateEquity #MergersandAcquisitions #Acquisitions #PE #Acquisitions

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"More than $12.5 billion has been bet on digital behavioral health in the last five years, according to Rock Health. Funding peaked in 2021, with $5.7 billion spent that year alone." As investors and innovators, I believe we need to broaden our focus in the behavioral health space from just expanding access to care, to effectively measuring the quality of that care. As we continue to encourage individuals, employers and plans to increase their spending and focus on behavioral health, we need reliable tools for measuring the long-term efficacy and impact of behavioral health services.

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Thought provoking post, Sam. I believe we should place investor equity first. It’s our job to preserve their investments. Most insightful response was that gains or losses aren’t realized until they property is sold. Psychology does play a part in our decisions and maybe to our disadvantage. Excellent post and responses.

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I had the honor of moderating a panel of three hospital Presidents/CEOs at Laudio's inaugural Leadership Innovation Exchange (LINE) conference. We discussed “Future-Proofing Health Systems” and what is required for the next generation of hospital leadership to effectively manage the healthcare workforce. We didn’t have a crystal ball, but we had the next best thing -- insights from these three impressive leaders. Quick takes: 💡 Mark Slyter, DSc, FACHE of Dignity Health: High reliability organizations are the way of the future. When implemented correctly, retention is the output and not the goal. 💡 Bill Santulli, FACHE formerly of Advocate Health: When looking for his successors, he looked for leaders who are effective at change management…it’s ultimately all about culture. 💡 Joseph Mitchell of Franciscan Children’s: It took a strong arsenal of leaders who were resilient to complete the integration with Boston Children’s and ultimately to bring attrition down from 35% to 18%. Heard throughout the day were these fascinating tidbits from C-level leaders on what is improving their workforce culture and satisfaction: 🐕 Geisinger: ‘Paws to Reflect’ program that brought in dogs for healthcare workforce, not for patients 🤖 El Camino: Robots for patient wayfinding – an idea that stemmed from their nurses when they saw the robots delivering specimen 💻 Stanford: Being discerning about not automating processes that are terrible, but only the ones that are deserving Hats off to the Russ Richmond, CJ Floros, Emma Smith, Ashley N. and the whole Laudio team on this fantastic LINE-up!

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Read our latest article on Creating an Ownership Culture. This piece dives into how fostering a sense of ownership among employees can lead to remarkable outcomes for both the team and the organization. Here at KKR we are committed to providing ownership to all employees in all new controlled deals, building on recent successes of our Broad-Based Ownership Program. Whether you're a leader seeking to enhance your company's culture or an employee interested in the dynamics of workplace engagement, this article offers valuable perspectives. 👉 Read article here: https://lnkd.in/ejVc2ffd You can download the full report here: https://lnkd.in/ee_vT2rs #Leadership #BusinessCulture #EmployeeEngagement #KKR

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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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In real estate there is a focus on not just building but on “placemaking” – creating a community where people are excited to live, work and play. It is great to see technology and innovation having a positive impact and unlocking community value at an accelerated rate. Camber Creek portfolio company Bilt Rewards, with their recent Walgreens partnership, provides an excellent example of how technology can help build stronger and healthier communities. CEO Ankur Jain: "Our mission has always been to add value to our members' daily lives within their local communities. By partnering with Walgreens and introducing automatic FSA and HSA savings, we're not just expanding our rewards program – we're simplifying healthcare expenses for millions of Americans. This is a significant step in our journey to become the nation's leading loyalty program for your home and neighborhood." https://lnkd.in/eFz6EgnF

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🧬 This week's Austin Bio + Health Roundup brings exciting funding announcements, important community events, accolades, partnerships, and milestones from across the Texas Bio Triangle. 🧬 💰 Funding Humanaut Health has secured an $8.7M seed round to bring access to health optimization and longevity to the general population. It's Austin funding Austin, as Midnight Venture Partners joined the round. Don't miss my short interview with Co-founder and CEO Jim Donnelly below! Optmycare, an AI platform in healthcare & risk management, raised a $3 million in Series A funding, led by Austin's own LiveOak Ventures, to accelerate its growth and build out its technology. 🏙️ Community Mark your calendars for the Nucleate Texas Final Pitch Showcase on May 17th. Catch the final pitches from 1pm to 5pm at Highpoint 2222, and discover what's next in platform discoveries, diagnostics, and therapeutics. 🏆 Recognition BrainCheck, a brain health diagnostic and tools company, received the Care Management Innovation Award at the 8th annual MedTech Breakthrough Awards. Congratulations Kim Rodriguez and the entire team for the well-deserved recognition of your work.   🤝 M&A and Partnerships Babson Diagnostics has announced a new partnership with Cynergy Wellness LLC, to provide clinician oversight for Babson’s customer-initiated BetterWay blood tests. One more step in providing access to this novel technology. Congrats David Stein, Eric Olson and the rest of the Babson team. 🚩 Texas Bio Triangle San Antonio-based Hera Biotech has released promising interim results for their groundbreaking endometriosis treatment. The data showed 92% sensitivity, 95% specificity, and 94% overall accuracy compared to histopathology. Congrats Somer Baburek, MBA on this important step in the development of a greatly needed diagnostic. This week underscores breadth and depth of sector. Let's keep the momentum going! What’s Next? #AustinNext #LifeSciences #Healthcare #Biotechnology

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Rock Health has unveiled insights from a recent survey focusing on U.S. adults managing their weight. The industry has witnessed substantial advancements in the last 5 years, with the emergence of GLP-1's new opportunities have surfaced for brands and companies to offer enhanced support services and products to consumers. What is an innovative product or service you have seen that is providing value to consumers on their weight management journey? #Healthcare #WeightManagement #Healthandwellness

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Join us tomorrow for a panel discussion on the complex relationship many FirstGens have to money and how that affects founders, investors, operators and others. See you tomorrow! https://lu.ma/9rixyzgs

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