Venture Studio Index - Feb. 13, 2023
More studio+industry tie ups, Thrive Capital valued at $5.3b, 5 new CEO roles, 7 new studios and a kill memo
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Venture studio news
General Catalyst partnered with 15 health systems to enable pilot customers for its startups. While General Catalyst does more external investments vs incubations, the article explores various reasons hospital systems join venture networks in general: i.e., staying ahead of competition, joining a prestigious club and gaining a financial stake in startups:
"It's also an opportunity for the traditional healthcare system to diversify their portfolio at a time when inpatient revenue and outpatient revenue are a challenge. We've created, for lack of a better word, a cool club. Health systems that really don't have a lot to be happy about want to join that cool club. And what they're getting out of that is this amazing creativity and knowledge of what's happening." …
"The health systems, we're just supposed to be hospitals that take care of sick people. What people are realizing is that's going to make us Sears in 10 [years]. Meanwhile, the One Medicals, the Chen Meds, the Oak Street Healths are gonna say, 'Yes, Steve, you keep doing that. And your competitor is Penn. Just let us at One Medical take the paying patients. Don't do anything entrepreneurial. You just keep taking care of the Medicaid patients.' And again, it would be great if we had a system where that worked, but that doesn't work.
(Becker’s Hospital Review, thanks to Aayush Gupta for sharing)
Thrive Capital sold a 3% stake of its GP to a group of businessmen including Bob Iger and Henry Kravis, valuing the VC firm and incubator at $5.3b. This deal is not only the highest reported venture GP valuation, but also gives Thrive strategic partnerships with some of the most powerful people in France, Brazil, India and in Finance and Entertainment broadly (Announcement, Deadline, WSJ - $)
Founders Factory partnered with Fastweb, an Italian telecommunications firm, to launch an accelerator and incubator (Silicon Canals, Tech.eu)
Pioneer Square Labs published an example of an internal memo used to kill a startup idea. The analysis covers Google/FB customer acquisition test results, competitive landscape and TAM (Medium)
Google shut down most of its Area 120 incubator. The company still runs other incubators, including X - The Moonshot Factory (Techcrunch)
Nikhil Krishnan, a healthcare tech and business writer, published a list of GPT healthcare startup ideas (Out-Of-Pocket)
Union Square Ventures invested in startups from two different venture studios last month (Venture Studio Index)
Interesting jobs
AI Fund - Founder in Residence, Cerebro
“Cerebro’s vision is to build the first “data lakehouse” paradigm for large-scale DL workloads.”
High Alpha Innovation - CEO & Founder, Agri-Food Production Maintenance
“We are partnered with Purdue University's Digital Innovation in Agri-Food Systems Laboratory (DIAL), a part of the Purdue Applied Research Institute (PARI). DIAL is a venture studio focused on creating startups that bring digital innovation to our food and agriculture system. In our work together, we explore unmet needs in the agri-food value chain, develop potential solutions, and launch new companies to build and bring them to market.
Our newest company is currently in Stealth Mode and is seeking a CEO & Co-Founder to bring to market a software platform that helps Ag Retailers and Food Manufacturers get a grip on their maintenance and repairs to support vital operations such as work orders, equipment, skilled labor, process flow and forecast maintenance needs.”
Platform Venture Studio - Founder in Residence, "Party in a Box", Party Planning
“Party planning is time consuming and overwhelming for busy individuals, especially moms. Pricing and variable estimates for a traditional party planner is a concern, and there is currently no simple way to select and hire party planner. Is there a way to make party planning and decorating easier AND eco-friendly at the same time? We are looking for a founder who is interested in coming up with a one-stop shop platform to help consumers throw their picture-perfect party.”
Platform Venture Studio - Founder in Residence, Quality Childcare
“There is a significant childcare gap in US and it is costing the country billions of dollars. Many markets don’t have any childcare resources. We're looking for a founder who would be interested in designing an innovative solution to this -- perhaps a platform that offers major operational improvements and/or cost savings to the daycares, or a ‘daycare in a box’ service to help daycares get launched quickly and passing all regulatory hurdles.”
Redesign Health - CEO, Pediatrics Stealth Co.
“StealthCo will partner with and acquire pediatric primary care practices to enable a conversion from fee-for-service to value-based care by providing a full suite of support services, technology solutions, and care model innovations. Starting with the Medicaid managed care population, StealthCo will leverage these enhanced capabilities to develop value-based payor relationships and improve care access and quality for this underserved population.”
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Database additions
We added 7 additional venture studios to the database, which now totals 403 studios and 1,836 startups.
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