The Coyote Fireside Chats resumed last week with Jenica Patterson, the lead for the Sprint for Women’s Health Initiative and Director of the Project Accelerator Transition Innovation Office at ARPA-H. ARPA-H, a branch of NIH, is devoted to accelerating better health outcomes and catalyzing groundbreaking innovations by solving health problems that cannot be addressed by commercial activities and traditional research methods. With $1.5 billion funding in FY24, ARPA-H streamlines the research and development timelines of new innovations by funding contracts and transactions instead of alloca ..read more

The first Coyote Fireside Chat of the new year was a panel that discussed “Partnering with Healthcare Providers,” presented by experts ,,Michelle de Haaff, assistant director at Stanford Biodesign and former VP at Glooko, and ,,Noel Pugh, CEO and co-founder of e-Lovu. ,,Nina Joshi, a Coyote Venture Fellow and Senior Consultant at Kaiser Permanente’s Innovation Studio, moderated this event.  Our Fireside Chats aim to be transparent and tactical sessions to provide founders with valuable lessons for navigating the digital health landscape. Successfully engaging with providers is a core com ..read more

Company: Sunfish Founders: Angela Rastegar Stage: Seed  Women’s Health Vertical: Fertility Industry: Financial Technology Meet Sunfish: financing solutions to help individuals build the family of their dreams Sunfish provides financial products and support for individuals and couples embarking on the parenthood journey. Assisted reproductive technologies (“ART”) can be complicated and expensive. Sunfish aims to simplify the financial opportunities, so that all aspiring parents can afford the fertility solutions they need to start a family. By combining dedicated financial advocates, comp ..read more

Coyote Fireside Chats continued with a panel discussing  “Selling Benefits to Employers.” We were grateful to be joined by Cara McCarty Abbott, CEO/Co-Founder of Betterleave (a Coyote portfolio company) and former VP of People, and Coyote Ventures’ Venture Partner Corina Leu, who is also a Strategy Consultant at Mercer. Melody Qiu, Coyote Venture Partner and VP at Progyny, moderated the event. Our Fireside Chats aim to be transparent and tactical sessions to provide founders valuable lessons for navigating the digital health landscape. Selling your solution to the employer market require ..read more

We recently hosted a panel that discussed how to partner with healthcare payer systems, featuring Mika Eddy (CEO of our portfolio company Malama Health, and a former Director at UnitedHealth Group), Michael Ellis (VP of Corporate Strategy at Blue Shield of CA) and moderated by Laura Finney (Coyote Venture Fellow and Senior Manager at Oscar Health). The views expressed in this blog post are topics discussed between the individuals who participated, and do not represent the views of the organizations they represent. Our Fireside Chats aim to be transparent and tactical sessions to provide found ..read more

Company: Betterleave Founders: Cara McCarty Abbott Stage: Seed Women’s Health Vertical: Mental Health Industry: Digital Health Meet Betterleave: bereavement care technology to help organizations support their members through grief and loss Betterleave aims to transform the bereavement care space with a differentiated, integrated approach to grief and mental health. Bereavement care is a growing category of employee benefits that enables modern employers to connect with and support their employees through the difficult and complex grieving process. Betterleave’s platform brings together industr ..read more

Coyote Fireside Chats is a new ongoing series of casual, informational sessions intended to provide founders and aspiring founders practical lessons for navigating the digital health and venture capital landscapes. We hosted the first of this series on October 18th, discussing “Raising a Seed Round from VCs.” It was led by Jessica Karr, General Partner at Coyote Ventures, and Jess Guenzl, Investment Committee member at Coyote Ventures and Investor at 137 Ventures. Charu Sharma, also on Coyote’s Investment Committee and a two-time VC-backed founder, moderated the virtual event. We were so exci ..read more

Olympic Medalist Tori Bowie, who passed away at age 32 due to complications from childbirth Overview The health of birthing people in the US is inadequate, especially when compared to other well-resourced countries. Unfortunately, communities that have been marginalized throughout our country’s history are still experiencing disproportionately negative health outcomes to this day, including within maternal health. There are a number of reasons why we see these disturbing trends, none of which are related to inherent biological differences. Although this is not a comprehensive review of the sy ..read more

Photo by Aditya Romansa on Unsplash Overview: Understanding the problem of US maternal mortality and morbidity The US maternal mortality rate is currently over ,ten times that of other high income countries with ,32.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021. In addition, the US struggles with high levels of ,maternal morbidity, defined by the WHO as “any health condition attributed to and/or complicating pregnancy and childbirth that has a negative impact on the woman’s wellbeing and/or functioning.” It is estimated that for each maternal death, up to 30 birthing people will experienc ..read more

The United States is in a maternal health crisis that continues to worsen. After the onset of COVID, 2021 recorded one of the highest maternal mortality rates in recent years (,since 1965), ,exceeding that of other developed countries. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths are suicide and overdose, which are preventable. There is currently a significant gap in awareness, education, and funding towards addressing this stark reality. However, entrepreneurs, researchers, policymakers, and investors have begun to take action ..read more