Ariel Poler

HealthVC x Lusha: Unlocking Smarter Fundraising and Sales Workflows We’re thrilled to announce our newest partnership: HealthVC has teamed up with Lusha to bring next-gen data and prospecting tools to founders, fund managers, and operators across our community. Lusha recently launched a powerful suite of AI-powered features that redefine how go-to-market teams research, prospect, and convert. Now those capabilities are coming to HealthVC Pro subscribers. ✨ With this partnership, you’ll be able to: Surface real-time, accurate, and compliant B2B contact data Use AI Prospecting Chat to instantly uncover new investor or customer leads Tap into CRM-triggered recommendations to stay one step ahead Turn insight into action with Sales Streaming, Lusha’s smarter, connected selling framework. But Lusha’s superpower isn’t just the AI; it’s that the AI sits on top of best-in-class data. That means every signal, every recommendation, and every lead is not just fast, it’s trustworthy. At HealthVC, we’re building more than a newsletter; we’re building the operating system for venture, and this partnership helps our members move faster, pitch smarter, and close better. Available now to all HealthVC subscribers, link in comments.

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🚨NEW EPISODE: Recorded live at FUTURE TITANS 2026 - Jeff Perry of Carta sat down with the iconic Seth Levine, co-founder of Foundry. Seth has been in venture for 25 years, built Foundry from scratch as an emerging manager himself, and has backed about 50 emerging manager funds through his fund of funds. He has genuinely seen every side of this table. They went deep on building Foundry, why VCs are in the influence business, not the decision business, and why the concentration problem in venture is not only bad for LPs, but also for the innovation ecosystem overall. And why Seth's new book, Capital Evolution, is so important for the future of America. 🎧 Links to listen... Apple: https://lnkd.in/ehQUQ2EM Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eU4FExpg

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🚀𝐇𝐮𝐠𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐍𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 $𝟏𝟖𝟕𝐌 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠. I first met Jonathan in 2021, and SparkLabs Taiwan became a seed investor in Nitra in 2022. From the beginning, the team had a bold vision to build an operating system for healthcare. Along the way, we’ve been supporting Nitra in building its engineering footprint in Taiwan, and we also had the chance to introduce new investors who later joined this round. Proud to have supported this journey from the early days. Excited for what’s ahead! 🚀 [Tim Hwang Hsufeng Lee Bernard Moon SparkLabs Group Eugene Kim Mallory Chien Regina Lo Kenny Chen]

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AI and Health Tech in Focus   AI Tool Used to Help Predict Postpartum Depression Researchers at Harvard University’s Massachusetts General Hospital have developed an AI tool that helps predict the risk of postpartum depression (PPD) before discharge from the hospital. Approximately 15% of women suffer from PPD which is responsible for suicide and self-harm and about 10% of all pregnancy related deaths. The researchers trained the algorithm based on about 29,000 mothers using electronic health records data including medical history, medication data, age, race, ethnicity, education, marital status, insurance type, number of births, mode of delivery, number of prenatal visits, length of delivery stay as well as an existing but more modest predictability score for PPD called EPDS. Incorporating this data resulted in an ability to predict more than three times the baseline risk of PPD. Using this model can help care teams identify those at risk for PPD and provide resources and support services such as referral to social workers, psychotherapy, psychiatry or medical therapy before they have an impact on the mother, child and their families. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

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Check out the latest from Limbic - their breakthrough study in Nature Portfolio, shows how Limbic turns frontier language models into behavioral health specialists. In their pre-registered, double-blind randomized trial they showed that: 1️⃣ Adding the Limbic Layer improves AI-led therapy performance by 43% 2️⃣ Clinicians preferred Limbic over general-purpose LLMs 83% of the time 3️⃣ 74% of Limbic's AI sessions ranked among the top 10% of therapists 4️⃣ Patients rate the Limbic experience as comparable to clinician-led sessions Amazing stuff from Ross Harper and Sebastiaan de Vries - delighted to have them in the Entrepreneurs First portfolio.

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Hot take: lot's of #LP's are growing underwhelmed with traditional venture investing. 💰 Fees are high given the level of engagement with the company operators. ❓ Access is opaque - LP's are unclear on the portco operations and outcomes. Outcomes are scattered - power law investing can certainly work, but many feel that venture capital investing is just a numbers game. There's another way. I'm biased, but I think it's better: #VentureStudios as an asset class. They blend: 🤜 🤛 Control and ownership 💡 Thematic focus 👬 Partnership with operators Studios offer a fund-like structure — but with more alignment, higher value conversion and less noise. If you're interested in understanding more about the studio model, we have resources to share. Please reach out and let's connect!

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Much of the money and time in healthcare happens past the point of diagnosis. The money: $200B of spend on specialty drugs. The time: putting patients on therapies requires clinical judgment, and navigating a labyrinth of paperwork and people. The result is a byzantine status quo where patients get life saving therapies denied or delayed, and hospital systems capture only $80B of the $200B of drug spend that they originate. Latent’s groundbreaking clinical AI is a portal into the future. Patients get therapies quickly with personalized care, and hospitals transform their bottom line. As a result, Latent has seen extraordinary traction, working with over 50% of the top 20 U.S. health systems in under a year. Latent is one of the biggest and most strategic opportunities in healthcare, sitting in between providers, payors, patients, and pharma. Spark Capital is delighted to support Rishabh Jain and Sriram Somasundaram and this consequential company and to work with Sarah Guo and Michael Dixon.

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I’m so proud that Hyphen Capital has been a backer of Tim Hwang and Jonathan Chen since the beginning of Nitra. They had big ambitions to modernize the archaic back office of healthcare practices from fax machines to AI. It’s been amazing to see their growth from processing zero transactions to over a billion dollars and they’re just getting started.

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AI and Health Tech in Focus   AI Tool Used to Help Predict Postpartum Depression Researchers at Harvard University’s Massachusetts General Hospital have developed an AI tool that helps predict the risk of postpartum depression (PPD) before discharge from the hospital. Approximately 15% of women suffer from PPD which is responsible for suicide and self-harm and about 10% of all pregnancy related deaths. The researchers trained the algorithm based on about 29,000 mothers using electronic health records data including medical history, medication data, age, race, ethnicity, education, marital status, insurance type, number of births, mode of delivery, number of prenatal visits, length of delivery stay as well as an existing but more modest predictability score for PPD called EPDS. Incorporating this data resulted in an ability to predict more than three times the baseline risk of PPD. Using this model can help care teams identify those at risk for PPD and provide resources and support services such as referral to social workers, psychotherapy, psychiatry or medical therapy before they have an impact on the mother, child and their families. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

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🧬 This week’s Austin Bio & Health Roundup has funding, recognition, regional momentum, & new PitchBook healthtech data giving us a peek under the hood of the sector. 🧬 💰 Funding & Capital Signals Hello Patient, a conversational AI platform for clinics, closed a $22.5M Series A led by Scale Venture Partners and included participation from Austin-based 8VC, who also joined their seed round. You need to check out their announcement video. Alex is in top form! 🚀 Launches, Expansions, Milestones, and Wins A second piece of Hello Patient news. They launched their platform into veterinary practices as well. 📊 Data PitchBook published an Emerging Tech Research report on Healthtech VC Trends. In 1H 2025, healthtech startups raised $8B, putting it on pace to beat 2023 and 2024 and possibly 2022. Exits are at $4.9B, suggesting this could be the highest year since 2021. Top 5 subsectors over the last 12 months: • Telehealth: $3.2B over 174 deals • EHRs & Clinical Information and Analytics: $2.2B over 76 deals • Care Management: $2.2B over 113 deals • Operations: $1.7B over 84 deals • Analytics: $1.4B over 104 deals 🏆 Recognition Phantom Neuro featured in "25 Healthcare Devices I Fell in Love With" on David Shulkin’s blog. Shulkin is the former U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs. 🤠 Texas Bio Triangle Houston: The Rice Biotech Launch Pad announced another investment, this time from Houston-based Carnrite Ventures. Houston funding Houston! What’s Next? 🤠 🚀 🦾 🧬

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Some quick and candid / not just bullish observations on AI in digital health, especially given the enormous level of noise at #JPM2026. Last (5th) post in the 5-on-5 series, opening 2026 with 5 different pieces with 5 observations each on the market for digital health founders. We are passed the hype phase. I actually think 2026 will be the year when saying 'AI' or 'Agentic' will raise more questions than applause. Too many pilots are not scaling, too many promises are yet to be fulfilled. When building a product takes less time, the path to commoditization also takes less time. Scribes, chart summarizations, etc. which leads IMO to NRR being much more important than ARR (show you are resilient to price pressure and churn) Most real impact of AI is on the back end of new companies. This is massive and hence any budget that looks similar to 2023 / 2024 or even 2025 budgets should render a very serious question As a byproduct, and unlike 2021, increased head count becomes a negative signal if the company is indeed AI-centered (proxy to inefficiency) And another key difference from 2021: raising a lot of money (with a big valuation) while the public market is at best open for high 9-digit revenue, is really playing very aggressive poker. For additional color, see this interview with CTech by Calcalist (first comment)

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I’ve spoken to over 2 dozen MDs at PE firms I can confidently say that the arb of figuring out how to implement Vertical AI at portfolio companies is very real right now It will fundamentally change underwriting for those who can do it predictably and unlock generational returns. Most are aware they need to act. Very few have.

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Cohere Health’s Series C: Case Study… McKinsey estimates that there is nearly $1 trillion of healthcare administrative expenses each year, of which $200 billion is just on financial transactions. There are a staggering nine billion medical claims processed each year. A hornet’s nest of policies and procedures have evolved to manage these expenses from complex formularies, deductibles, co-pays, and prior authorizations (PA). Just in 2023, there were over 50 million PAs, 99% of which were for procedures for Medicare Advantage members. It was this market opportunity that Cohere Health was created to address. The vision of the company has always been to drive deeper payer/provider collaboration and in so doing create a “touchless authorization” business model. The company has successfully commercialized a suite of next-generation PA products that significantly rearchitect the way care pathways are delivered. Recent advances in AI have further catalyzed a drive to meaningfully improve clinical and administrative efficiencies for payers. In order to continue its rapid scaling and development of additional products, Cohere Health today announced a $90 million Series C financing, led by Temasek, a close partner of Flare Capital. Other thoughts/observations... https://lnkd.in/eAB-JvUp Flare Capital Partners

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A quick thought on AI operating metrics. Over the past few weeks, headlines have been plastered with moves in AI, late stage healthcare funding and IPOs. For context, I’ve been buried in healthcare pitch decks evaluating Seed and Series A companies promising to shift care delivery with digital triage, LLM driven diagnostics, clinical decision support tools, RCM automation and chart abstraction across both consumer and enterprise. Most narratives pro forma multi million dollar ARR figures ramping at rapid clips over the next five to seven years until a liquidity event. So where am I going? This focus reminded me of a segment from famed eBoy and highly respectable, Bill Gurley in his recent Invest Like The Best interview, which kept echoing in my mind. “You might be getting compute cheaper from the wrapper company than from the model company who is getting it cheaper from the hosting company, and yet only the hyperscaler truly profits.” What I've found is behind an enticing AI growth chart lurks a hidden compute cost that must be clear and, for me, factored into underwriting. To illustrate why this matters, here is a simple assumption based example. Assumptions: 500 active users/per month 2,000 tokens/ per user/ month or (1,000,000 tokens total) Healthcare startup charges $75 sub per user/month COGS/user/month: $90 Gross loss per user: $15 Monthly cash burn: 500 × $15 = $7,500 Why this matters? ARR is not the same as cash flow. $37,500 in ARR can hide $7,500 of deferred burn every month. Compute is repeatedly resold. The same GPU cycles generate revenue at three separate layers, yet the layers above the application layer really capture the real profit. Hence, part of Bill's point. Margin discipline is essential and optimizing for each layer of the stack is critical. GPs can support sustainable growth by requiring clear paths to positive unit economics before celebrating ARR milestones.

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💡Emerging GP Fundraising Insight #8: Rolling Closes Keep You Moving Small funds can't always afford to sit still until the target is hit. Rolling closes let you start deploying earlier, build a track record, and show momentum to prospective LPs. One GP told me that for Fund I ($5M target), he took capital as it came, signed, wired, and got to work. It wasn't perfect, but it kept the lights on and the deals moving. Sometimes the "sign and wire as it comes" approach is the only way to get moving. Takeaway: Momentum is a fundraising asset and rolling closes can help you keep it. Has anyone here used rolling closes as a strategic advantage?

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FANTASTIC news at Ubiquity Ventures-backed Ketryx! Co-founders Erez Kaminski and Jan Pöschko have just closed a new $39 million Series B financing round. Ketryx offers an AI-powered compliance platform that lets people all over the world design, develop, test and deploy highly-regulated products at a fraction of today's time and cost. It's an AI-native platform that lets you interconnect different IT systems with AI agents to accelerate the rate of safety-critical product development. Three of the world's top five MedTech companies already trust Ketryx to build safer software faster—and we're just getting started. Glad to have partnered with Ketryx from the very beginning on behalf of Ubiquity Ventures alongside E14 Fund (Calvin Chin & Habib Haddad) and bring on Lightspeed (Guru Chahal) and 53 Stations (Kevin King) at our Series A 18 months ago. Watch more below!

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I’ve known David Meister for years and backed him at Sydecar, so I’ve seen his ability to build through complexity. Axiom Trust is taking on one of the most outdated parts of wealth infrastructure, trust administration, by pairing a regulated trust company with AI-native workflows. We're proud to invest again and congrats to the team on the launch!

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