Season 3 Episode 4 (23): Vanessa Villaverde of CHCF Innovation Fund
Welcome to Season 3 Episode 4 (23) of the Treat Us Right Podcast. The only podcast dedicated to helping you get treated right when interacting with the US Healthcare system. And welcome to the Premier Episode of our series covering the ViVE 2024 conference in Los Angeles featuring emerging companies and investors dedicated to promoting health equity, so healthcare can work for US we can all get treated RIGHT.
These are all 5-star episodes, so don’t forget to give that rating! Listen via the file on web (above) or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Podcasts.
Leading off our series is an absolute superstar in the space, Vanessa Villaverde of the California Healthcare Foundation Innovation Fund.
Episode Summary
Vanessa Villaverde, Senior Program Investor at the California Healthcare Foundation (CHCF) Innovation Fund, discusses her work in creating pathways for underinvested founders in the healthcare industry. She emphasizes the need for more diversity and inclusion in digital health and highlights the challenges faced by founders of color in accessing venture capital. Villaverde also mentions the importance of leveraging government funds and charitable organizations to support companies addressing health equity. She discusses her role in the CHCF and her work with the nonprofit organization Founders and Funders of Color, which aims to connect and support organizations addressing health equity challenges. Villaverde encourages listeners to stay tuned for the organization's national tour in 2024 and provides contact information for those interested in learning more.
Transcript (auto-generated)
Vanessa Villaverde (CHCF):
However, I will tell you my broader true north is to create pathways for under invested founders.
David S. Williams III (Host):
Hello Righters! David Williams here, CEO of Care3 and your host of the Treat Us Right Podcast. The only podcast dedicated to helping you get treated right when interacting with the US Healthcare system.
You’ve seen all the headlines. Efforts to create a more equitable society are under siege.
The first to fall was affirmative action in college admissions. There were never race-based quotas, but having a diverse class was seen as “locking out more qualified students.” We know what that is code for….
The next target has been employer initiatives like DEI, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion which exploded in popularity and positive results after George Floyd’s brutal video-taped murder. All of the data indicates that having a diverse workforce improves productivity AND profits. Yet, that’s not good enough.
Now the crosshairs are trained on venture capital. Firms that have investment theses for women, people of color, and any other targeted groups are subjects of campaigns to their Limited Partners, government regulators and others to stop the flow of funding. The goal: stop venture capital dollars from flowing to emerging companies that further equal the playing field of life in this country.
As a serial entrepreneur and startup advisor, I am here to say that the efforts to stop us from building meaningful companies will NOT succeed. And the Treat Us Right Podcast is bringing receipts.
Welcome to the Premier Episode of our series covering the ViVE 2024 conference in Los Angeles featuring emerging companies and investors dedicated to promoting health equity, so healthcare can work for US and we can all get treated RIGHT. This movement will not stop.
Leading off our series is an absolute superstar investor, Vanessa Villaverde of the California Healthcare Foundation Innovation Fund.
Vanessa Villaverde (CHCF):
David, thank you. First of all, I just want to thank you for saying my last name correctly and a 20 year plus career in healthcare. You can imagine the rooms I've been in across DC New York did not necessarily say my last name correctly, but there are not enough Latinos across the board, but particularly in digital health. And so I'm thrilled to be here and I'm thrilled for the work that you're doing to frankly democratize access to healthcare information. Thank you.
David S. Williams III (Host):
Thank you. So tell everybody what you do and the different initiatives you're working on.
Vanessa Villaverde (CHCF):
I am the senior program investor with the California Healthcare Foundation. This is a role I took on about a year ago. However, I will tell you my broader true north is to create pathways for under invested founders. After my policy career in DC I went into the startups first one iPod at Signify Health. Second one, Keon Tax raise multiple rounds. And I'm really thankful for having had that experience with executives who were seasoned, who knew how to get to exit and acquisition. And in that strategic growth role learned everything from how to internally operate and bring teams together and how to externally translate this to investors. And so the pathways and the projects that I create now are all focused on addressing the challenges we have today at the foundation, I'm helping to open more doors, particularly for founders and funders that are looking to invest into Medicaid and that are looking to address health equity, particularly through this digital health opportunity we have right now at ViVE thanks to the California Healthcare Foundation, we were able to sponsor 35 founders of color because had we not sponsored are unaffordable tickets to startup founders. We all know the stats Black and Latino founders receive less than 2% of venture capital, but in particular in digital health, it is a much bigger gap. These founders of color do not have $5,000 lying around to come in to talk to people that they don't have a current relationship with. So right now we are offsite because we have match made with other venture capital groups that need to know them with other revenue opportunities that need to know them and associations because this is part of the building.
David S. Williams III (Host):
Thank you. Because Care three is one of those scholar recipients for Vibe. What you really said that struck me was how you are trying to enable the companies that are driving a lot of these initiatives in the health equity whose have these that say, I can help our communities in a way that nobody else has done before. And so we thank you for that. From the founder side, tell me some of the things that, or one case perhaps, that you feel is emblematic of the work you've done that's pushing towards health equity. And I already gave you one point for getting these founders to survive.
Vanessa Villaverde (CHCF):
Just to be clear, we had 180 founders apply for 30 slots and we alone at the foundation can't support them all. The second thing I am focused on, and I guess it's emblematic, is addressing the misnomer that there's lots of venture capital out here for these companies. We were in a conversation yesterday where we were discussing the fact that most every founder in the room had to seek out dollars from foundations or charitable organizations. In other words, it's not the large venture capital groups that are actually fueling the incubation of companies that are addressing health equity. It's literally foundations and charitable dollars banning together. I come particularly from government funds and what I'm especially excited about and I guess is emblematic, is making sure that we educate our digital health founders on how to leverage SBIR dollars or government dollars so that they can start braiding this into their pathway and fuel their companies.
David S. Williams III (Host):
Absolutely. I think for the trius right listeners, a couple of things you said will stand out, which is one, how can we make these companies grow? Growth means serving more people. Growth means bringing more services that are culturally relevant, culturally competent, so that we can benefit. Right now, we know we're underserved, we are not treated right by the healthcare system, and essentially you're saying I'm trying to build out the ecosystem and the funding foundation for these companies to grow and bring all of these innovative services to us that is treating us right. So thank you for that. What challenges are you facing? You've mentioned a couple of them already. How are you overcoming those?
Vanessa Villaverde (CHCF):
Yeah, I mean, just to recap, the challenges I'm seeing is that we need more funding doors for digital healthcare companies addressing health equity. We need more revenue doors of clinical organizations that are willing to partner at an earlier stage and we need more ecosystems that are open and diverse and inclusive. So specifically, I am really thankful that I get to focus on these roles at the California Healthcare Foundation, I also started a nonprofit called Founders and funders of color.org. We had a national tour in 2023 and stay tuned for National Tour in 2024. We essentially work as an aggregator. I'm working to overcome these challenges by frankly bringing together the disparate threads that are already trying to address these challenges throughout the country. We have pockets of talent in ai, in food and nutrition, in mental health, in every single type of area that our community needs right now.
But because they're not connecting to the rest of the ecosystem and overcoming the relationship and information gap, they're not getting to a statewide level and then to a national level. So we are literally traveling around the country to make sure these organizations know each other and meet each other. I was so excited last night because a lot of the founders who have been part of our founders and Funders of Color Tour happened to all be in the same room in the evening, and they knew each other from different cities because they're operating in different cities and they're helping each other in different cities. So we're just going to keep building with the accelerators around the country.
David S. Williams III (Host):
That was beautiful to see, and I am a proud participant of the Founders and Funders of Color ecosystem. How can people get in contact with you? You've made such an impact already, just with this few moments you've given us. How can people contact you if they want to learn more and talk to you?
Vanessa Villaverde (CHCF):
Yeah, I will say stay tuned for our national tour in 2024. Our executive director is working on that right now. It's www.foundersandfundersofcolor.org and I am happy to put you in touch with anyone in our organization to get you connected as well as review your pitches.
David S. Williams III (Host):
That sounds great, and we'll have everything linked on our site as well. Vanessa, thank you so much. This has been amazing. I am so thankful for the work that you're doing. Thanks for joining us on Treat Us Right.
Vanessa Villaverde (CHCF):
Thank you for helping us build our community in LA.
David S. Williams III (Host):
And we won't stop!
David S. Williams III (Host):
That was the incomparable Vanessa Villaverde of the California Healthcare Foundation Innovation Fund. You can email her at vvillaverde@chcf.org.
We have another great feature coming up in our next episode. Definitely check it out and thank you for listening to the Treat Us Right Podcast. Take care.