define venturesa venture company whose portfolio consists of well-known early-stage startups in Silicon Valley has raised $460 million from Fund III and Opportunities Funds and is looking to expand its investments in digital health.
The company invested in Folx, which offers virtual health services for the LGBTQ+ community, hybrid healthcare provider for women Tia, digital care management platform DexCare, health management platform Laudio and many other startups.
Lynne Chou O’Keefe, Founder and Managing Partner of Define Ventures sat down with us Mobile Health News to discuss the company’s recent raise and the types of early-stage digital health platforms in Silicon Valley it plans to invest in.
Mobile Health News: What kind of digital health companies would you like to invest in with the funds raised in April?
Lynne Chou O’Keefe: With the $460 million for our Fund III and Opportunities FundThis makes us one of the largest early-stage funds for digital health. And we’re really focused on healthcare convergence because we’re deep healthcare operators with Silicon Valley principles and what’s happening in technology and really unlocking consumer influences as well.
We have this analogy that says we’re rebuilding the house of healthcare and that starts with what we call the front door, or we call it a consumer door.
We believe that the way people enter the healthcare system is changing, between health and well-being, mental behavioral health, and the entry and fulfillment of these needs is evolving rapidly with the consumerization of healthcare.
We say: as soon as you enter the house, you are on the base layer of this house. And every clinical decision, every business decision is based on what we call data liquidity and analysis. We firmly believe that in order to provide people with personalized care, one must understand not only the clinical data and the claims data, but also home data and community-based data, as we obviously move towards more value-based care in the future.
So if we have the right clinical data, damage data, house data and community-based data, we can now take you down the hallways of the house to a more personalized experience where healthcare is delivered in the rooms, which is really technical. activated service, digital therapeutics.
And the last area we mention is vertical reinterpretation. So we say full stack houses, these are the new entrants that can in some ways compete with the incumbent operators and full platforms that have put all these elements together.
MHN: Is there a type of company that you specifically want to invest in? For example AI or companies focused on generative AI.
O’Keefe: We invest in incubation, seed, series A and series B. So what you are looking for absolutely depends on the phase. We’ve invested in a team that’s really two people with a PowerPoint presentation and an idea, and we’ve invested where we were a part $140 million Series B in value-based care. So we’re looking for different things.
Of course, when it comes to generative AI, it’s like the meteor impact, right? And you know, the consequences have yet to be discovered. But one thing that I think we need to keep coming back to after being and being in healthcare, especially if we live in the valley and understand technology, is a pretty bold statement to me: it’s never about who Technology. It’s about the use case.
So rather than asking a question, “What is the generative AI company you are looking for?” I think of it more as, “What is the problem, need, or use case that I have for a vendor, a payer, a Life -Science companies trying to solve an employer or the consumer, and do LLM models represent a tipping point?” for this use case to be solved?”
I’ve seen these generations of technologies over time. If it wasn’t generative AI, then before that it was blockchain etc. And I think healthcare works in a way that we’re probably not the first to use technology compared to other sectors, but we need help in the Healthcare because we need it Technology enablement to drive use cases, drive value and drive ROI [return on investment].
MHN: What are the warning signs when you hear a pitch?
O’Keefe: There is the ancient market. The timing of this opportunity is incredibly important. And I’m also saying, ‘Can this model be flexible in some cases, in a pay-for-a-service world and in a values-based world, while we’re on this healthcare journey? Does the founding team really understand that use case?” You know, when they just throw a bunch of words about generative AI but can’t really tell how the payer is going to take advantage of this and get an ROI within a year? How do we feel about go- to-market actions and what will this product and solution solve differently and is this the team that will bring their expertise to make this vision a reality?
And speaking of healthcare, I would like to say that I think Define can be very helpful in bringing people to market, especially in digital healthcare. We believe in the definition of partnership. It’s one of our core values. But we also need an entrepreneur who has done their homework and we will expand this through our networks and experience and adapt our go-to-market models. But someone who understands. And you need to know that on day one.
