Health

The Opportunity

Global healthcare spending exceeds $9 trillion annually — roughly 10% of global GDP. Yet outcomes are abysmal relative to that investment. The U.S. spends more per capita on healthcare than any country in the world and ranks 69th in health and wellness. 45% of Americans skip or delay medical care due to cost.

The pandemic exposed what was already true: the healthcare system is designed for acute intervention, not prevention. For specialists, not primary care. For wealthy nations, not global access. For billing complexity, not patient outcomes.

The founders who rebuild this system around access, prevention, and scalable delivery will build generational companies.

Our Thesis

Ivystone backs healthcare companies that treat access as a product feature, not a philanthropic afterthought. We invest in technology that reduces the cost of care delivery by 10x — not by cutting corners, but by eliminating the administrative waste, geographic constraints, and information asymmetry that inflate costs.

We focus on founders building healthcare infrastructure that works at the bottom of the pyramid and scales up — not luxury solutions that might "trickle down" someday. The best healthcare companies will serve the most people, not the richest people.

We're particularly drawn to platforms that shift the model from treatment to prevention, from episodic care to continuous monitoring, and from facility-based delivery to distributed, technology-enabled care.

Sub-Sectors We're Watching

• Telehealth and virtual care — Platforms that deliver specialist-quality care remotely, particularly in rural and underserved areas where provider shortages are acute
• Digital therapeutics — Software-based interventions that treat chronic conditions (diabetes, mental health, MSK) with clinical-grade evidence and at a fraction of pharmaceutical costs
• Healthcare operations technology — Tools that reduce the 30% of healthcare spending wasted on administrative complexity — billing, scheduling, credentialing, prior authorization
• Global health delivery — Scalable models for delivering diagnostics, treatment, and preventive care in low- and middle-income countries using mobile-first, community health worker-enabled approaches
• Mental health infrastructure — Platforms that expand access to mental health care beyond the therapy session — employer programs, school-based services, crisis intervention, and peer support networks

Requests for Startups

1. AI-powered diagnostic triage — Build a system that helps community health workers in low-resource settings accurately triage patients using smartphone-based assessment tools, symptom analysis, and AI-assisted decision support.

2. Prior authorization automation — Automate the prior authorization process that delays care for millions of patients and costs the U.S. healthcare system $35 billion annually in administrative burden. AI that handles the payer-provider bureaucracy.

3. Chronic disease management for Medicaid populations — Remote monitoring and care coordination platforms specifically designed for Medicaid beneficiaries managing diabetes, hypertension, and COPD. This population has the highest burden and the least support.

4. Pharmacy benefit transparency — Expose the opaque pricing structures in the pharmaceutical supply chain — PBM markups, spread pricing, rebate flows. Build tools that help employers, plans, and patients see what drugs actually cost.

5. Mental health for adolescents at scale — Technology-enabled mental health support designed specifically for 12-24 year olds. Not another meditation app — clinical-grade interventions delivered through the channels and modalities young people actually use.

6. Maternal health in underserved communities — The U.S. maternal mortality rate is the worst in the developed world, and 3x worse for Black women. Build monitoring, care coordination, and doula-matching platforms that specifically target maternal health disparities.

7. Affordable diagnostics for emerging markets — Point-of-care diagnostic devices that work without laboratory infrastructure, cold chains, or trained technicians. Target the diseases that kill millions in low-income countries but don't attract pharmaceutical R&D investment.