Kris Jenkins

The (Healthcare) Ground Beneath Our Feet… This year it is likely that over $10 billion will be invested in the digital health sector – a robust amount, no doubt, but inconsequential when compared to the amount of capital tied up in healthcare real estate assets, which is estimated to be $1.2 trillion by Jones Lang Lasalle. Of that amount, approximately $790 billion is in the hospital sector while the remaining $490 billion is in medical office assets. It is estimated that there are 48.6k facilities with 3.4 billion square feet of healthcare real estate, 42% of which are owned by REITs and another 33% held by other private investment vehicles. Much of the digital health investment is meant to make the physical healthcare infrastructure more productive: greater operating efficiencies, greater patient throughput, more relevant personalized care models with better outcomes. As the healthcare system is being pushed to be more distributed to lower cost sites of care, accelerated now by the rapid proliferation of automation and AI capabilities, the potential impact on healthcare infrastructure assets will be profound. Thoughts on what that might look like... https://lnkd.in/eTfAdUbS #digitalhealth Flare Capital Partners

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Thanks Daisy Wolf for hopping on our Healthy Savings podcast and chatting. Great to get your perspective on why folks should be starting healthcare companies today, more than ever as well as some of the areas that you think are especially ripe for disruption and new solutions with AI. Full episode here! https://lnkd.in/dqetgRgj https://lnkd.in/dpWWSSVs

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Did you know that the ACA covers 21M Americans? This makes the individual insurance market an incredibly large and stable risk pool. Oscar Health unveiled its 3 year strategy a few weeks ago and shared how we plan to build on our strong position in the ACA market. We believe ICHRAs (Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements) can transform the health insurance landscape – we will bring our Oscar Magic to small and medium-sized businesses. By moving these employees to the individual market, we create a win-win: employees get more choice and differentiated plans, while employers have more control over their benefits expense (often a business’s second largest after salaries!). And we all win when we drive down rising health care costs. I’m so excited to see what we can do by bringing our Oscar Magic to more of the health care ecosystem!! See some highlights from Investor Day here:

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Hot take on a lot of early-stage digital health companies out there: You're not a tech company. Most tech-enabled care companies I've seen over the past two years are only tech-enabled in the sense that they use telehealth as their delivery mechanism for care. There are exceptions to this, of course - companies who build computer vision and applied AI tools to better the doctor-patient experience, companies who build tooling around risk scoring and stratification to enable more personalized medicine, companies who build truly novel intakes to better route patients to the appropriate care, etc. These companies have real technology chops and, if they sell it right to the market, can get credit for this from investors. But if you're truly a telehealth provider, you need to realize now that the goal post has shifted dramatically from 2021 and you're going to be valued at maturity at something like 3x EBITDA. That's profit. Not revenue. Throw a revenue multiple out the window. That's not the world we live in if you're a virtual doctor's office. Think of how that impacts venture math. If you're raising a seed round at $15M post-money (or $12M pre-money), it means you'll have to generate something like $150-200M in annual EBITDA to be a fund returner for your seed investors. Maybe even more with dilution, since telehealth businesses are not traditionally capital efficient and will likely need to raise material additional capital to reach that scale. You need to be ridiculously profitable (probably on $800M-$1B in annual revenue since you're likely going to be a 40% gross margin business). Here's the good news: you can set yourself up well (and probably be a contrarian founder relative to your peers), by talking about EBITDA growth and how you can grow into a fund-returning outcome based on realistic mature market comps. This will stand out for the investors you're pitching, even at the early stage. This is how you can beat the malaise of the tech-enabled care market. Focus on the right metrics and the right type of growth. You don't have to have all the answers (no founder does), but you need to make sure the ship is headed in the right direction. A focus on profitability for "tech-enabled care" (*ahem* telehealth) businesses is a good first step.

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Platforms are in, point solutions are out as the healthcare AI category leaders come into focus this year. In conversation with Shelby Livingston at Endpoints News, I shared: 1. Why AI-first companies have the greatest platform potential and heuristics for identifying these opportunities at the earliest stages, 2. How companies are differentiating through co-development and distribution partnerships with leading healthcare institutions, and 3. Strategies for navigating anemic budgets and constrained market sizes through business model innovation such as AI-enabled services and pay for performance models Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dJWqv_zC Bessemer Venture Partners Abridge #healthcare #lifesciences #AI #generativeAI

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“You're expendable.” This was the answer when I recently asked a customer why they chose Growth Acceleration Partners, “GAP”. “We had an important short-term project and couldn’t afford to redirect anyone from our current projects and didn’t want to hire W2 employees. So, we decided to go the nearshore route so we could release the team when done, and GAP came highly recommended.” (paraphrasing) This customer has now been with GAP for over three years, with a slightly larger team than in the beginning. I asked him why he stays with GAP, and he effectively said, “See answer above”. In today’s market, tactics is strategy. Annual roadmaps become quarterly adjustments. Adding “permanent” hires becomes a short-term risk equation, rather than a long-term opportunity bet. Even in today’s buyer’s market for engineering talent, an uncertain future leads to slower hires and the addition of employees who come into the organization already demotivated because they are making 30% less than before. While the hard cost savings of nearshore are as significant as they were before — FTE costs are still at least 30% less — the need for quality people with the ability to easily release is even more attractive than ever. Historically, the average turnover rate for senior software engineers in the U.S. is about 1-2 years. For managers, it’s 3-4 years. For perspective: The average “GAPster” tenure for software engineers is 2x to 3x longer. The average GAP client tenure is over 5 years. So what does all this mean if you're a #CTO, #CPO or #VPofEngineering? At GAP, we don’t care how we start with our clients (or for how long you think you need us). What we care about is that once you’ve experienced GAP, you will want that experience to continue for a long time. So, if you’re not at least having the conversation about nearshore engineering partners, then you may be incurring unnecessary risk and missing out on a great opportunity to hedge your opportunity bets. #nothinghappenswithoutaconversation

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This is not a post about 10 lessons learned from hurricanes for building better SaaS products. Just a quick life update. On Sunday a slow-moving tropical storm—later upgraded to Hurricane Debby—moved through our area and dropped nearly 18" (46cm) of rain in about 24 hours. Sarasota rarely floods but this was an exception. This video is from Monday as we left our home in a jon boat to explore the damage to our area. We are literally boating down our driveway into the street. Thankfully no water entered our home and flood levels have lowered significantly across the city. We are holding steady at Fort Moll and you needn't be concerned about us. This is certainly not our first hurricanodeo. However others were not so fortunate. If you have friends or family who were hit hard not just in Florida but anywhere in the hurricane's path, please send them to https://crisiscleanup.org where they can request volunteer work crews to assist with recovery free of charge. (The Molls might even be one of the crews sent to your home.) — Video: Sarasota, Florida on August 5th in the afternoon. #HurricaneDebby #flooding #stormseason

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With so many exciting reasons to hit the road (Copa America, holiday travel, summer plans), it’s important to make sure you’ve got the right tools in place. That means having the right insurance. According to recent figures https://lnkd.in/ePVjEuSw., the average premium for full coverage auto insurance has surged to $2,543 in 2024, marking a 26% increase from 2023. This can unfortunately make it difficult for people to prioritize insurance payments or maintain adequate coverage, resulting in 14% of drivers choosing to drive uninsured. Just as individuals do, business leaders have to take note and the proper precautions. Rising costs act as a reminder of the importance of continuously assessing risk and liability. It's vital to have the best fitting insurance policies in place. By doing so, business leaders can protect assets and employees alike, while navigating the challenges of rising costs.

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New Episode Alert! 🚀 | The Pair Program Ep47: Driving Innovation: The Partnership Between CHAMP Titles and W. R. Berkley Corporation   🎧 Join us this week as we dive into an enthralling discussion with Shane McRann Bigelow, CEO of Champ, and Michael Nannizzi, who runs the venture arm at W.R. Berkley. This episode provides a front-row seat to the synergy that drives substantial change in the vehicle title industry and beyond.   🚗 **Shane Bigelow** shares the motivating journey behind Champ, a tech pioneer reshaping how vehicle titles are managed in the U.S., leaning on his extensive experience in investments and ESG initiatives.   💼 **Mike Nannizzi** gives us an insider's view of venture capital with a focus on early-stage tech investments, detailing W.R. Berkley’s crucial support for Champ’s innovative mission.   🔍 In this episode: - The innovative solutions Champ introduces to the vehicle title industry. - How W.R. Berkley propels Champ’s goals forward. - Challenges and breakthroughs in tech innovation within the federal sphere. - Predictions on the evolution of government-tech collaborations.   👥 Whether you’re passionate about entrepreneurship, government tech, or strategic partnerships, this episode is packed with insights from leaders pioneering industry innovations.   🎤 Tune in to glean actionable insights and get inspired! [Link to the episode in comments below]   #ThePairProgram #GovernmentTech #StrategicPartnerships

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Time to get your "Founder Mode" on! Check out this panel and workshop on bootstrapping your startup during Denver Startup Week, September 18! #startuplife #denvercolorado #denverstartupweek #allthethings

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When rebuilding a platform, defining the right approach can make or break the product’s future. In this week’s Dear Melissa, I answer a question from a UI/UX designer facing a major rebuild at their SaaS startup. They’re moving from a no-code setup, and the challenge is clear: how to approach the migration in a way that balances technical requirements with strategic goals. Here’s what I break down: 1️⃣ Why a platform rebuild should focus on rethinking strategy, not just replicating the old version. 2️⃣ The importance of a platform product manager with experience in both technical and commercial trade-offs, to make sure you’re building only what truly drives value. 3️⃣ Why this role should report to the CPO, aligning with the head of product to prioritize the bigger picture and market fit. A rebuild should be an opportunity to rethink what truly adds value for your users and how the platform aligns with your product’s bigger vision. How does your team handle major rebuilds? Let me know in the comments! #dearmelissa #productmanagement #platformrebuild #productstrategy #startup #cpo #SaaS

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Great article defining an MVP in detail from Ben Yoskovitz. Also gives a solid argument against the "L" of my SLC (https://lnkd.in/g9yRi9-B).

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There's one thing that truly differentiates great healthtech companies from the ones who fizzle out. Distribution. There's so much red tape in this industry - if you have incredible distribution, it's so much easier to build and iterate on your product. Working with customers isn't hidden behind a 5-year bureaucratic process anymore. Without great distribution, everything becomes 10x harder and takes 10x longer.

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It's not often that within days of GA you have MILLIONS of enterprise employees using your new product, but that is the case with Visier Inc.'s new #GenAI product, Vee. Part of what makes this possible is Visier's canonical data model, which is home to the people insights of >50,000 customers. Part of what makes this possible is nearly 100% customer participation in anonymized data aggregation, which results in rich benchmarks seamlessly exposed in Vee ("compare my trailing twelve months attrition to my industry peers"). And perhaps its possible because Visier has become an employee "database of intentions", with hundreds of millions of prior queries guiding Vee to know what business answers are most relevant to surface. Thanks to our partners Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure for this infrastructure and expertise to bring Vee live at this scale. Available to purchase for all of Visier's enterprise customers and Visier's fantastic Embedded partners like Paycor. https://lnkd.in/ga_rDVTm

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Vertical LLM Agents with vertical specific business context are the new $1B SaaS opportunity. This is why our laser focus on the $1.3T Insurance industry - built on the foundation of the team’s decades of experience in this industry, with a deep understanding of the nuances of the insurance industry, the technology systems that power this industry, trust from the real humans that work in it, the business processes that create real LAE, Opex and ultimately Combined Ratio impact - allows us to reach real scale with AI Agents and gives me conviction in our purpose.

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🚢 Today, we are launching the expanded platform for Retirement At Finch, we are democratizing the data models underlying the employment industry. Access to this data will spur new and much-needed innovations, such as what the retirement sector is currently experiencing. With around $40 trillion in retirement assets in 2024, retirement represents a major segment of the employee benefits industry that has only become more important as our Social Security is unable to sustain the growing population. SECURE Act 2.0 is going to drive 2-3x more sponsors to offer retirement benefits over the next five years, and the retirement infrastructure needs to evolve to sustain this. As an infrastructure company, we power the likes of Fidelity Investments, Ameritas, ePlan Services, Inc. (Paychex), Morningstar and other leaders in the space, serving more than 40 recordkeepers and TPAs and 45K+ sponsors with 5M+ participants. By working with the early technology adopters, we saw firsthand the need to evolve our platform so that Finch could grow to serve all 2,000 TPAs and 500 recordkeepers, ultimately powering the entire ecosystem. The speed we ship features at Finch is incredible, and there are more on the near-term roadmap! Now is the perfect time to onboard with Finch. Reach out to me at [email protected], and I’ll make sure you get a personal onboarding experience.

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Nirvana just turned the dial way up with a $24.2M Series A, coming straight from the big guns: Northzone, Inspired Capital, Eniac Ventures, and Surface Ventures. If you’re in healthcare and still struggling with messy insurance verifications, here’s a free tip: take notes from Nirvana. Akshay Venkitasubramanian, Urvish Parikh, and Kelvin K Chan aren’t here to “disrupt”—they’re here to dismantle the tired systems that have been slowing down healthcare since 1985. Here’s how Nirvana’s rewriting the rules: they’ve built a lean, AI-powered platform that takes insurance verification from the stone age to real-time. No cards, no complicated codes—just a streamlined, 94% accurate AI machine that spits out instant cost estimates and does it with zero hassle. It’s so good they’ve already got 5,000+ providers on board, handling over 2 million patient visits a year. And these are big names: think Headspace Health, Nystrom & Associates, Ltd., Hopscotch Health, and some quiet but massive #Fortune500 players. The punchline? Nirvana’s saving providers 30,000 hours in biller time and pushing efficiency up by 110%. Now, they’re stacking Series A cash to fuel expansion across even more specialties, bringing transparency to every corner of healthcare and giving patients something they haven’t had in ages—cost clarity before they even step into the waiting room. But this isn’t just about making things faster or smoother; it’s about Nirvana stepping in to change the game completely. Whether it’s through direct API, EHR/EMR integrations, or their slick OneVerify app, Nirvana’s tech lets healthcare providers get down to business without the red tape and guesswork. So, if you’re still caught up in yesterday’s healthcare chaos, remember Nirvana’s name. They’re not just in the system; they’re building a better one. And honestly, with numbers like these, the rest of the industry better keep up—or get left in the dust. #HealthTech #Healthcare #Insurance #InsuranceTech #PatientProtection #PatientCare #InsuranceVerification #SeriesA #VentureCapital #StartupFunding #Technology #Innovation #TechEcosystem

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There are healthcare visionaries I never thought I'd get to talk to on my podcast. Dan Vahdat is one of them. Back in July this year, the same week Huma announced the launch of the Huma Cloud Platform (together with its series D funding of $80 million), I talked with Dan for an hour about his journey and their plans for the future. In case you are not familiar with Huma just yet, here is a brief recap: 📋 One of the first (if not THE first) digital health companies to enable remote patient monitoring and receive regulatory clearance in Europe (IIb) and the US (II) for a multi-condition configurable disease management platform 🏥 More than 3000 hospitals and clinics supported 👨‍👩‍👧 27+ million patients served 🎖️ Winner of the “best of the best” Prix Galien International 2022 award (aka: the life sciences industry Nobel Prize) 🤝 Dozens of partnerships with leading tech companies, healthcare giants, and health systems 🚀 And the list goes on… Now in its 13th year and nearing profitability, the company has never been so close to realizing Dan’s vision: augmenting the capacity of health systems at scale, while enabling true proactive and predictive care! 🎙️ In this episode of Impulse - Meeting Healthcare Pioneers, we talk with Dan about Huma’s evolution into the “Shopify” of digital health - the foundational infrastructure enabling digital health companies to build regulatory-cleared disease management programs, more efficiently, and affordably. A true catalyst for the entire digital health ecosystem, healthcare professionals and patients alike. Dan also shares his reflections on why Huma succeeded where many digital companies failed, and why we should all be enthusiastic about the future of digital health! Link to the episode in the comments below: ⬇️ #Huma #DigitalHealth #Podcast *** This episode was made possible with the support of HLTH Europe, Europe’s #1 health innovation event!

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