Podcast

Several years ago, leading VC Marc Andreessen proposed the notion that innovation happens through a process of unbundling and rebundling. 

Healthcare is no exception.

Through the micro-specialization of companies, we’ve witnessed a great deal of unbundling in the industry. Now, we’ve begun the process of rebundling. 

So, what does this mean for the future of healthcare tech? And how do venture investors leverage this idea to decide which digital health startups deserve funding?

Dr. Vineeta Agarwala is General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where she leads investments for the a16z bio and health fund across digital health care delivery, biotech and life sciences tools and diagnostics. 

Dr. Agarwala has a special interest in companies leveraging unique datasets to improve healthcare delivery, and she serves on several healthcare portfolio company boards, including Memorial Health, Thyme Care and Waymark.

On this episode of HLTH Matters, Dr. Agarwala joins host Dr. Guatam Gulati to discuss what health payviders are doing to aggregate the best technology for specialty care and how we might integrate such specialized health tech into already complicated workflows.

Dr. Agarwala shares her take on the successes and failures of digital health in the last decade, describing how healthcare tech has been transformative for certain patient populations and why she sees most remote connected wearables as a missed opportunity.

Listen in to understand how the high bar for fundraising is changing the way a16z makes decisions and get Dr. Agarwala’s advice for aspiring founders in healthcare tech.

Topics Covered

• How Dr. Agarwala thinks about the unbundling and rebundling of services in healthcare
• What health payviders are doing to aggregate the best possible technology across large numbers of specialty care areas
• How we might integrate specialized health tech into already complicated workflows (and why it’s such a challenge)
• Dr. Agarwala’s take on patients, providers and payers as joint custodians of healthcare data
• The pros and cons of imposing a government tax on corporations to access healthcare data
• How digital health has been transformative for some small patient populations, health systems and provider practices
• Why Dr. Agarwala sees remote connected wearables as a failure in the absence of intelligent care management
• How the high bar for fundraising has changed the way a16z makes healthcare tech investment decisions
• Why a16z is encouraging its portfolio companies to adopt a lean business model
• Why now is a phenomenal time to start a company in the healthcare technology space
• How Dr. Agarwala’s experience with her grandfather’s death informs her work at a16z

Connect with Dr. Vineeta Agarwala

Dr. Agarwala at Andreessen Horowitz

Dr. Agarwala on Twitter

Dr. Agarwala on LinkedIn

Connect with Dr. Guatam Gulati

HLTH

Dr. Gulati on Twitter 

Dr. Gulati on LinkedIn 

Resources 

Julie Yoo at Andreesen Horowitz

Thyme Care