DaVita Venture Group

A couple of weeks ago, we got to attend Celebrate & Grow, DaVita Kidney Care's annual product/tech celebration with leaders. The past year has brought a lot of reason to celebrate, including the massive growth of our teams, product development success, and increased collaboration across DaVita's team. Each product team gave awesome presentations, leaving the room energized about how integral technology will continue to be in DaVita's model of care for both CKD and ESKD patients. The keynote speaker was Conor Grennan, who shared a fantastic talk on how to develop an "AI mindset," which will allow everyone to utilize AI to increase efficiency, whether we're a clinician, product lead, or serve a business role. I was left energized to think about how AI will allow us to spend more time on critical thinking, and less time on administrative, redundant tasks. Thank you to the product leadership team, including Adam Weinstein, Derek Schoonover, Matt Brill, Melinda Zupinski, Hillary Jeffries, August Jaenke, MBA, PMP, and many more! This was such a fun event to attend and participate in. Can't wait for the next one.

Congratulations to Heartbeat Health on its Series C investment led by Cressey & Company. We are excited to be doubling down alongside Echo Health Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Optum Ventures, and DaVita Venture Group in this game-changing company! .406 Ventures led Heartbeat’s Series A in February 2020 (just before Covid and the proliferation of virtual care). Even then, we saw the potential for HBH to leverage world-class clinical expertise to become the largest virtual cardiovascular care provider in the US. This new funding will solidify that position and allow the company to expand access to even more patients who will benefit from this level of care. Heartfelt congrats to Jeffrey Wessler, David Dempsey, Jana M. Goldberg, MD, FACC, Brian Greer, Saiba Sabherwal, Andrew MacGill, Anthony Castillo, and the whole team! ❤️ Payal Agrawal Divakaran, Liam Donohue, Rebecca Redfield, Trip Hofer https://lnkd.in/eqStFFip

Congratulations to Heartbeat Health on its Series C investment led by Cressey & Company. We are excited to be doubling down alongside Echo Health Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Optum Ventures, and DaVita Venture Group in this game-changing company! .406 Ventures led Heartbeat’s Series A in February 2020 (just before Covid and the proliferation of virtual care). Even then, we saw the potential for HBH to leverage world-class clinical expertise to become the largest virtual cardiovascular care provider in the US. This new funding will solidify that position and allow the company to expand access to even more patients who will benefit from this level of care. Heartfelt congrats to Jeffrey Wessler, David Dempsey, Jana M. Goldberg, MD, FACC, Brian Greer, Saiba Sabherwal, Andrew MacGill, Anthony Castillo, and the whole team! ❤️ Payal Agrawal Divakaran, Liam Donohue, Rebecca Redfield, Trip Hofer https://lnkd.in/eqStFFip

Every once in a while a team comes together in such a way that you can tell something special is happening. That's Heartbeat Health right now -- that rare combination of people working on something so important, and performing in such a spectacular way that you just feel tremendous pride being part of it. ❤️ Today we memorialize this team and our work by announcing our Series C financing -- led by Cressey & Company, with participation by .406 Ventures, Echo Health Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Optum Ventures, DaVita Venture Group 🔥 Heartbeat Health has stepped up in a big way this year, and this feels like just the beginning. We're here making cardiovascular care accessible from anywhere. Every single day. 🚀 Thank you to our team, our partners, our investors, but most importantly, our patients. 🙏 David Dempsey Jana M. Goldberg, MD, FACC Saiba Sabherwal Brian Greer Andrew MacGill Anthony Castillo Lauren Taylor Pei-Chun (Cheri) McGregor Artemus Anderkay Monica Poling, SPHR Tyler Darby Hoby Albright Steve Dildine Payal Agrawal Divakaran Liam Donohue Jessica Zeaske Kanyi Maqubela Kaylan Alderson Jane Rho https://lnkd.in/eUt49Ryk

Last week, DaVita’s value based care team (aka our IKC team) held its annual leadership offsite. The energy was real, loud, and forever focused on doing what’s right for our patients. Some key takeaways included: 1️⃣ managing value based care for our kidney patients requires coordination across the spectrum of care, including early stage CKD, dialysis, transplant, and end of life care. A holistic model of care is needed to serve our patients’ comprehensive needs. 2️⃣ the landscape of value based care is changing quickly. Our IKC team has grown and adapted quickly in response to a myriad of these changes. Change is expected to continue, but the team remains focused on delivering exceptional patient care and physician engagement. 3️⃣ collaboration is key. Our IKC team has driven tons of great collaboration efforts- across our value based care and dialysis care teams, between our care teams and our patients, as well as between our DaVita teams and our physician practice partners. DVG feels fortunate to partner with our DaVita IKC team and can’t wait for continued impact with our patients and providers! (Feat our Chief Transformation Officer Misha Palecek) #valuebasedcare #healthcare #innovation

Meet 14 of the most active investors in the kidney space from idea to IPO across care delivery, devices & diagnostics. It's time for an updated and expanded look at who, when, and what gets funded across kidney care.💰 https://lnkd.in/eNwEnehS IN THE TABLE: • 𝐖𝐡𝐨 & 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧: The left-most columns in this table contain 14 of the most active investors in kidney care across the company lifecycle. This group broadly represents four investor types from idea to IPO: (a) accelerators; (b) early stage venture capital; (c) growth equity; and (d) strategic capital. • 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭: There are 4 segments (colors) highlighted in this table: Care delivery (yellow), devices (purple), diagnostics (blue), and other (green). For what it’s worth, I track 9 segments across the Kidneyverse. (see link in comments) • 𝐖𝐡𝐲: Investments happen because founders and investors share a unique point of view about what the future looks like. It’s as much about timing (why now?) as it is about fit (why you?). First, I’ve separated investments (solid border lines) from mergers & acquisitions (dotted lines). Second, I’ve included a crown (“👑”) for companies with an exit, either through M&A or IPO. WHAT'S NEW? 1️⃣ First, you'll notice we've added three new investors to the mix. My goal here is to highlight three different strategies within the venture landscape in (a) growth (SoftBank Group Corp.); (b) early stage (New Enterprise Associates (NEA), and (c) venture studio (Redesign Health). 2️⃣ I've also added updated a few of the selected portfolio companies within the existing investor categories. Many of you called out these companies after I published v1.0 in December, especially in light of recent headlines (breakthroughs, M&A, etc.). These include eGenesis, Inc., Thyme Care, Heartbeat Health, SameSky Health, and 34 Lives to name a few. TAKEAWAYS: • I realized by making the above changes and re-sorting the investor list by stage (descending by stage / check size), we start to see some of what I set out to understand in the first place. That is, where money flows based on the investor type (left side) and company segment (right side). For e.g., take a look at the yellow vs. purple / blue groupings, where growth dollars fund services and early stage money gets put to work in breakthrough devices and diagnostics. • We've continued to see consolidation in care delivery, and are starting to see it among specialty value-based care delivery (though, outside of kidney for now). A big question on my mind is how / when some of these late stage investors who see the full picture (say polychronic, in-home, or tech-enabled care) decide to start selling, buying, or merging their bets. With many billions at work in this the yellow bubbles alone, and continued "resets" in areas like virtual, primary, and VB care, I think it's fair to expect some moves in this space over the next 6 to 12 months. What do you think? 👇🏼 #funding #venturecapital #startups #medtech

We are so excited to welcome our two interns for the summer through the DaVita Kidney Care Redwoods program: Blake Niehaus joins us from his Wharton MBA and was previously in private equity at Arsenal Capital Partners and Audax Group. Kate Williams joins us from her Texas Christian University undergrad and interned in consulting last summer. We are looking forward to learning with and from you this summer!

Yesterday I shared news of a merger in the Kidneyverse. Well, make that two more companies joining forces. This time, it's Heartbeat Health and Karoo Health teaming up to create the first national, scalable, end-to-end cardiac value-based care (VBC) solution for payers, at-risk entities, and provider networks. [1] Wow, that DaVita Venture Group portfolio is putting in work. They participated in Heartbeat's $20M series B back in May, 2021. Last month I had a chance to listen in on a great panel with Heartbeat CEO Dr. Jeffrey Wessler and DVG's Jane Rho around business building in this space and some of the key hurdles and proving grounds for companies this/next year. [2] This week we also heard news of the merger between GroundGame.Health and SameSky Health, which DVG invested in (also series B) back in 2020 (fka ConsejoSano). Also worth noting 7WireVentures was an investor in both companies and led the financing post-merger. [3] Back to cardiology though. Specifically, let's talk about specialty VBC. You might remember the image below from the HMA / Leavitt VB report that came out earlier this year. It illustrates the broad segments by business model and provider focus and includes a sampling of entity logos to illustrate the types of organizations that currently fall into each category. Heartbeat isn't shown, but I'd wager it's in the lower-third of specialty care providers. Now, the combined entity sits in the bottom-center, right? [4] Last month, Blake Madden hosted Karoo Health CEO Ian Koons and Strive Health's Chief Strategy Officer Ben Kuhn in a nice little fireside chat about all of these topics. Go check out Blake's community to hear their timely thoughts and insights (link below). My inner Carrie Bradshaw can't help but wonder: if this sort of tie-up is happening with Series B/C specialty VBC in cardiology, what would it look like in nephrology? -- Sources: [1] https://lnkd.in/eWxWPxKh [2] https://lnkd.in/efTFFYeB [3] https://lnkd.in/esRs6Tmm [4] https://lnkd.in/ejb3rP2z

Two companies in the Kidneyverse orbit are joining forces to leverage the power of human touch to unlock the "last mile" of social impact and cultural connection. SameSky Health is merging with GroundGame.Health, which closed a $17 million funding round led by 7wireVentures after the companies joined. The combined company will accelerate a shared mission to improve health and advance health equity by closing the loop around health-related social needs and gaps in care at scale. Together, their coverage spans all 50 states. [1] SameSky is a DaVita Venture Group portfolio company. We also shared an article in last week's Across the Kidneyverse written by an investor from 7WireVentures that (naturally) referenced GroundGame as a noteworthy examples of a digital health company embracing local communities and on-site services. Other examples mentioned included Live Chair and Waymark. [2, 3] Speaking of social determinants, you might have seen the Fierce Healthcare article sharing how Papa is looking to drive deeper support for insurance plans through new offerings focused on Star ratings and SDOH. The company is pitching Papa as a way for health plans to improve their Star ratings—by enlisting pals to drive members to annual wellness visits and preventive disease screenings. [4] Is it just me, or can we find some way to adapt and scale these programs for people, households and communities impacted by kidney disease? We have a home dialysis bill in the mix, a new FDA VR/AR Home as a Health Hub project, and a push for more last mile, in-home support. [5] How long before these trends come together and make a dent in US health/care? Let us know what you think! 👇🏼 Sources: [1] https://lnkd.in/gqKjfWSF [2] https://lnkd.in/gNFmJ8Pr [3] https://lnkd.in/gz_-PSaM [4] https://lnkd.in/g-Rj998A [5] https://lnkd.in/gh9gt8Cd

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