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  Speaker 1:
  Hi, I’m Mike Collins, the founder and CEO of Alumni Ventures. Today we’re going to talk about medicine and VCs and where we’re seeing the lead VC firms placing bets and making investments. A lot of talk right now about AI seems to be in the news every day. It’s earth-shattering. We’re going to actually talk a little bit about it today here and its impact on the healthcare landscape, but there’s a lot going on here and it’s a lot less in the news—but equally as exciting in its impact for humanity. So let’s dig in.

  So, disclosures—yes. We’re talking today about Alumni Ventures and my views and our views of the investing landscape. This is for informational, educational purposes only and is not an offer to buy or sell securities, which are only made available through formal offering documents.

  Alright, so one-minute background on us. I’ve been in the VC space a long time. I started Alumni Ventures about a decade ago. Our niche is to co-invest alongside really strong lead investors to bring together large groups of people to get access to the most competitive deals in the venture landscape. And our target is to offer this to individuals and now big endowments and pension funds. So it’s gone pretty well.

  We’ve raised—coming up actually on $1.5 billion—from 11,000 customers. We’re one of the most active venture capital firms on the planet. Again, related to being a co-investor. We’re 100 employees, 10 investing teams in the venture hubs.

  Really good trophy case. I think we’re very well-respected among VC firms and entrepreneurs as a co-investor of choice.

  It all comes down to what deals you can get into. One thing that’s new this year—we are publishing our Apex 50. These are companies that we’re super excited to be investors in. Obviously, we’re aware that not all of them are going to crush it, but we think just bringing the spotlight to some of our companies helps people understand us better—versus 1,500, which can be a little overwhelming.

  These are the firms that we are most actively co-investing with. So you’ll recognize these names.

  So let’s get into it. This idea of Medicine 3.0. Again, people who have encountered the U.S. healthcare system understand it’s reactive—basically, wait until you break down and then we will try to fix you—and combine that with kind of a crappy insurance system.

  It’s clearly inefficient and expensive and bad. I think, to use a Scott Galloway term, Medicine 3.0 is a real chance to chip at that. I’m not talking about, in two years it’s going to be totally different. But I think disruption happens: slow, slow, slow, slow, fast. And I think that process has started, which will be more data-driven, tech-enabled, personalized, preventative, with a lot more choices, and where efficiency and cost-effectiveness begin to count.

  Now, it’s highly regulated. There’s a huge medical-industrial complex, and it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take time. You’re not going to beat it by going head-on. But this is where VC and entrepreneurs do their thing. So we’re going to talk a little bit about the shift and the opportunity over the next decade. Cautiously, very optimistic.

  This list could be 20 things, but here’s just a handful of themes:

  • Early detection: Cancer—one of the four horsemen of death—is one of the vectors where we’re going to start to see big breakthroughs and improving survival rates.

  • Early detection: We’re going to increasingly put power in the hands of individuals with sensors, wearables, and more data that you have control of.

  • When you have the data, combine that with AI—you’re going to be a much more informed partner with your healthcare provider.

  • Diagnostics: Faster, more precise. The ability to crunch data and do personalized stuff—we’re on the doorstep of that. Theme: treat the one, not the many.

  • Systemic shift: Reimagining patient care, where people have more power and more control. They’re going to shop; they’re going to put together their own health stack—”this is where I’m going to get my GLP-1 drugs,” “this is where I’m going to take care of my mental health,” “this is my strategy for my own wellness”—and increasingly narrow traditional medicine to when you

  Speaker 2:
  Have a big thing that needs to get fixed.

  Speaker 1:
  Early detection—we all know there’s a lot of work. If you can get in early—really early—there’s a lot of stuff you can do with immunotherapy. These are just some of our portfolio companies. I encourage you to look them up, read the work they’re doing, the progress they’re making. This is all about getting in early, fixing it before it’s a big problem. You can prevent and cure at a whole different rate.

  And again, most cancers—if you get them early—you fundamentally change the trajectory of outcomes. So I think getting in earlier, with better data, better sensors, better detection, new approaches, will change outcomes.

  If we can treat these problems like we do now with colon cancer—if you get it early, it’s kind of manageable. No big deal. If you get it late, it’s a huge problem.

  So—detection.

  Okay, we’ve already seen this starting. Our portfolio company Oura Data—when you know what’s going on in your body—and I think we’re going to increasingly have more and more data that’s individualized to ourselves.

  Oura is super great for sleep. Apple Watch—really pretty good on heart monitoring stuff. More and more things that you used to have to go to a big expensive scanner system for—I think you’re going to find their way into homes.

  With this data and AI, we’re going to be able to do more preventative stuff. Another thing very popular right now is blood glucose monitoring, which is starting to break the skin layer. And once you do that, again, there’s a whole bunch of other things that you can be detecting.

  Just an example: people can use that to find out how they react to coffee in the morning. Managing their blood sugar—where I have no reaction, my partner’s blood sugar spikes. That’s also in this idea of personalized medicine.

  We are going to see an explosion of wearables, and then people using AI with this data to develop plans, develop strategies, and understand when they have a problem.

  So again, we have a whole portfolio of companies in this space. I think we’re going to see whole new things on diagnostics. We have a tremendous portfolio in this space. The combination of data, AI, and sensors allows us to do a lot more in the home, a lot more inexpensively.

  You’re seeing more and more kits going to homes where people can be testing, people can be diagnosing.

  These are disrupting—in a simple word—instead of a big centralized, “I’ve got to make an appointment with a doctor,” “I’ve got to do this”—you know you have this issue, you have a kit, you get the data yourself, you get the results, you can begin to interpret them.

  The backdrop here is—it is very clear that with the right data, an AI system can exceed your doctor—who, by the way, is a generalist and maybe 20 years out of date in certain areas, and is going to refer you to a specialist.

  Again, not proposing we’re quite there yet—obviously, get in trouble for saying anything—but consult your medical professional. But I’ll just speak personally, which is: every test I get now, I run through an AI system, and I believe I am very informed to have a good conversation with a healthcare professional in a way that we weren’t a couple of

  Speaker 2:
  Years ago.

  Speaker 1:
  Again, personalized medicine—the ability to understand your body, your genetics, your biome, your chemistry, your hormonal system.

  DNA sequencing prices—we could have put up a whole bunch of other things that were super expensive—whole body scans—that are now getting much, much cheaper, much, much faster.

  I think we’re going to go from personalized data → personalized diagnosis → personalized solutions over the next 10 years in a really profound way.

  Again, this is human health. It’s appropriately regulated. One can make an argument that there are times when it’s overly regulated and too slow—because of the central bureaucracy that manages all this—but I think the weaponry and the trends are now inevitable, and we’re going to see tremendous value created in companies over the next decade.

  Personalized medicine, for sure, is happening.

  Patient care—again, how we’re seeing more platforms, we’re seeing more direct-to-consumer. I think this chart is where it’s starting: psychiatry, substance abuse disorder—some of these niche categories where there are way too few specialists, and people are very frustrated about getting someone who can actually work with them.

  This is a lot of industries—you go through the low-hanging fruit. Classic disruption theory.

  Again, we have a very active portfolio in the space. We could list another 10 companies that are taking this on. It’s not going to be: “Day One, we’re totally replacing the traditional system.” But I think if you put this up in three years, there are going to be more dots covering more of these.

  And AI is just a huge accelerator to make all of these things work better, faster, more cost—

  Speaker 2:
  Effectively.

  Speaker 1:
  Just a couple of other things that I’ll share that I think are really active, interesting themes.

  This is kind of a catch-all idea, most popularized by Brian Johnson and his “most tested man in the world” business approach—which I think is actually very clever.

  People are getting older. People are living longer, with that, having different chronic diseases. Everybody’s read about the dementia issue—that’s really about people living longer.

  So I think there’s a lot of focus on the length of time one can be active and healthy. “Healthspan” is a term.

  There’s a lot of money, a lot of work, a lot of interest in this space. And this is an affluent population—so if you can come up with a product or service to help a 50-year-old put another 10 years of skiing on their life, the world will be—

  Speaker 2:
  At a path to your door.

  Speaker 1:
  This is profound.

  Again, drug discovery—of cancer, difficult diseases. Some of the things with AlphaFold—understanding proteins, peptides, how they work—combine that with huge processing power: Stargate and the like, AI systems.

  There are a lot of really smart people with really deep understanding—super excited about the power of these tools. And I think one should be very optimistic about our ability to address the four horsemen over the next decade. And that’s heart disease, cancer, diabetes, brain health—those things that we really want to lick.

  If you can lick those, it’s a much, much better world.

  AI is going to be a big player in prevention, early detection, and then addressing problems as they occur. So—really all along the front. And smart VCs are investing in it. And really exciting results are starting to show up.

  Speaker 2:
  Early in the approval process.

  Speaker 1:
  Just one more thing. We obviously have a Health Tech Fund, we have an AI Fund, and for those who are new to the space, we have a Foundation Fund, which covers a lot of the investments in a lot of different sectors for people that want to dip their toe into our world of venture investing.

  These are the kinds of personas that most of our customers have. They kind of fall into one or more of these categories. They range from trophy hunters—who are really looking to hit home runs—to people who are really interested in understanding what’s next in their sector or for their professional development. And then you have just the super rational portfolio builder: “I’m going to manage my portfolio. I can’t predict the future, but I am going to be diversified and leaning into where the world is heading.”

  So all are true, and we have great products for those folks.

  I think we’re going to take a few questions from our people participating today. So yeah, these are three funds that you might be interested in. Again, at our website, you’ll see our entire portfolio—from well-diversified, kind of invest-in-everything, to the ability to create your own.

  Speaker 2:
  Over here in the chat. Yeah.

  Speaker 1:
  How do you deal with the regulatory environment? FDA approval is tough and long and expensive. How do you know which startups can make it?

  Listen, I think when you do due diligence on a potential investment in this space, the regulatory environment is front and center. So I would say probably half of our companies have what I call regulation-light landscapes that they deal with. And the other ones—you’re looking for teams, including lead investors, who understand the process and know how to navigate it and do it.

  And it’s a double-edged sword because if you do get through it, that is a moat. So it’s a balancing act. And again, when you look at a deal, you’re not looking at one thing. You’re looking at the team, the size of the problem, the science, the traction the team has made. Have they done this before? Are the right people assembled? How much money is this going to take? What are the risks? Is this a team risk, technical risk, science risk?

  Who’s the lead? A very important decision for us. Do they know the space is cold?

  All those things come into consideration.

  With telehealth soaring, what prevents more incumbents from dominating the space? And what unique advantages do venture-backed startups bring?

  Listen, the whole disruptor versus incumbent discussion is really interesting. It’s subtle, it’s nuanced, but in general, the world is littered with people who assumed the incumbents were going to win. And just the Innovator’s Dilemma says there are time, profit, and resource incentives that keep them wanting to defend where they’re at versus invent something new.

  And I’ll just bring kind of a live example of that from today, which is: Google had all of the things in-house a decade, five years before OpenAI. It really took OpenAI to come out with ChatGPT to kind of get Google off its butt and start working in the space.

  Now, is there going to be a place for OpenAI and Google? We’ll see. And then we have DeepSeek and other now-Chinese companies coming out and doing it in an innovative, cheaper way. So that’s the story of innovation and disruption.

  Don’t bet against a small group of highly dedicated people—especially today, with AI. You can do so much more, so much faster, with less.

  If you were to plot a curve of how much one small team can accomplish with $2 million over time, that’s been on a geometric decline over the past 15 years. So I think we’re going to see our first 10-person, billion-dollar-valued company over the next three years.

  What you can accomplish—the forced creativity, the innovation, the speed at which a small group can go—compared to a big company, compared to bureaucracy, systems, incentives… It’s the Innovator’s Dilemma.

  So we really like the chance of the young upstart beating the incumbent.

  Health tech has this other dimension. The third dimension is really the regulatory environment. I think that’s going to actually change over the next five years as well to emphasize speed a little bit more and a little more flexibility. So I think that’s a tailwind.

  Last question: How many companies would I own if I invested in the Health Tech Fund?

  So most of all of these funds listed here—and it’s kind of the standard—are 20 to 30. So you’ll get nice diversification within the vertical of lead manager, sector, team, geography, stage.

  We also have the ability to participate in kind of single investments. So a lot of people will think about this like: “Hey, I’ve got my core funds, and then I complement those with particular investments because I think they’re really interesting and I love the idea and I like putting a little money to work behind this team and the chance of hitting a home run.”

  But to answer your question quickly: 20 to 30. So it’s a nice diversified portfolio.

  Again, a lot of our customers—and we encourage this—will build a portfolio of 100 to 200 companies over a few years, which, given the power-law nature of venture capital, is really a good way to go.

  So I’ll wrap up. We really encourage people to hop on the phone with us, explain where you are in your journey, what you want, how we could potentially help. There’s probably a pretty good answer.

  So take 15 minutes, talk to us— and we’ll see you down the road. Thanks.