Video | Digital Health Insights from our Portfolio

In the rapidly evolving domain of digital health, Molten Ventures recently hosted a panel featuring leading innovators and thinkers in the field to explore how technology is reshaping healthcare.

You can watch the full video below or, if you would prefer a wrap of the key points, read on.

Inga Deakin, Principal and lead on digital health and life sciences investments at Molten, began the discussion by highlighting the unique challenges of investing in the healthcare sector, emphasising the need to consider the intertwined perspectives of patients, providers, and payers. She underscored the pivotal role of health innovation in catering to the diverse needs of individuals, whether they are receiving professional healthcare or not.

“We are a globally ageing population; an increasingly overweight and inactive population. Older people accumulate multiple health conditions over time. Over 50% of people over 75 years old have three or more conditions. We have to think about these patients much more holistically, often with a high level of multimorbidity. The knock-on effect is increasing healthcare costs.

This is increasingly unsustainable. Our spend can't keep up with the challenges we have in healthcare. So, frankly, we're desperate for healthcare innovation across the ecosystem of healthcare and beyond. How do we think about bringing innovation into this broad ecosystem in health?”

Inga also introduced the expanded concept of the quintuple aim in healthcare improvement, which goes beyond merely enhancing population health to also include efforts to reduce healthcare costs, improve patient and provider satisfaction, and bolster equity. She highlighted the growing potential and resilience of digital health tools, even amidst challenging economic conditions, drawing from her own experience with telehealth investments and the critical importance of data privacy, security, and AI across different sectors. This interdisciplinary approach underpins our investment team's strategy.

She concluded by providing an insight into Molten Ventures' digital health portfolio, with companies like Clue and Oliva serving as prime examples of their investment thesis, which focuses on not only patients but also on providing individuals with consumer-grade experiences, thereby contributing to the improvement of healthcare from multiple perspectives.

Audrey Tsang, CEO of Clue, introduced Clue as a pioneering platform in menstrual and reproductive health, aiming to support individuals "from someone's first period to menopause." She emphasised the transformative power of data to insight to agency, claiming, "Tracking leads to data, data leads to insight, Insight leads to agency and agency is honestly the key to health and well-being."

“Why has Clue invested so much of our time, energy in redressing the inequity in women’s health? And why Molten has invested in making sure that women and people with cycles have this service? Well, centuries of taboo and stigma around basic bodily functions for half the world's population contribute to our users often saying: ‘I just wish people took me more seriously, I just wish the healthcare systems took me seriously’.

Most of a woman’s health journey – if you're not a technical ‘patient’ in the healthcare system – is not understood. It's under-researched, it's under-innovated, it's underserved. When it comes to improving population health, improving health equity, improving that patient experience and truly engaging people with their health… we're excited at the role Clue will play in that.”

Javier Suarez, CEO and Co-Founder of Oliva shared his personal journey of founding TravelPerk and experiencing burnout, which led to the inception of Oliva. He detailed the challenges in accessing mental health support and Oliva's mission to overcome these, explaining, "We're enhancing human-led care with technology... to make it a lot easier for individuals and practitioners to engage meaningfully in between sessions." Javier envisions Oliva helping professionals and, by extension, their companies to thrive.

“In my case, after nine months of spending a lot of energy, a lot of money trying different therapists, I finally found one that worked for me and got better. But then I looked around, and it really made me think how many of these people in my company were going through the exact same thing.

It made absolutely no sense to me that in today's day and age this was happening; that it was so difficult to find that support. So, I went really deep and started doing some research. What I found was a massive amount of evidence on what works in mental health, that's clinically proven. And I concluded that we don't really need more science, what we need is access to that science at scale.”

In his closing remarks, Martin Davis, Molten's CEO reiterated Molten's purpose: to advance society through technological innovation.

“Our speakers today are a prime example of how we can deliver on this purpose. We help scale companies that make a difference. And it's not just about providing capital, it's also about providing experience, energy, but also deep knowledge of how to transform these companies into large, well-run commercial organisations.

We're at an exciting juncture where technology meets healthcare, and the companies we've discussed today are at the helm, steering us towards a future where healthcare is more personalised, accessible, and equitable for all."

Image Credit: Clue