Choosing Women and Family Health
It’s been three years since I joined the founding team of Panache Ventures, a pre-seed and seed stage fund investing in Canadian entrepreneurs.
I still remember the day that our Toronto Partner, Prashant Matta, met me in Brookfield Place for my first interview, electing not to ask me traditional interview questions, but instead posing one simple one: ‘Are you sure you’re ready to leave big corporate for a scrappy 7-person team?’ I took the weekend to reflect, made the leap, and haven’t looked back.
Over the past three years, I’ve met with 757 companies, had the privilege of saying ‘yes’ to 27 of them, and encountered countless more inspiring people along the way. The first deal I worked on was Relay Financial, led by the mighty Yoseph West & Paul Klicnik, who recently raised their US$15M Series A. For my last deal, I capped off my time by investing in one of the most inspiring women I’ve yet to meet, Myra Arshad of ALT TEX.
Today, I’m announcing a new chapter: I will be joining Koble, a digital health and community platform for new and expectant parents.
Women & Family Health
Despite being a sector-agnostic fund, about 10% of the deals I worked on at Panache were focused on women’s health. If you’ve been in the Canadian tech ecosystem, undoubtedly you’ve heard of the waves created by Alyssa Atkins @ Lilia and Marina Pavlovic Rivas @ Eli.Health, both of whom I’m fortunate to count in our Panache portfolio.
During my time at Panache, I also saw the impact of wrapping technology around segments of the women’s health journey, segments that hadn’t been iterated on in dozens of years, leading to (a) women and families being forced into a one-size-fits-none healthcare solution, and (b) maternal mortality rates being the highest since the 1970s.
I invested in women’s health companies looking to change precisely this.
Recently, though, I’ve noticed a new wave, a wave that fixates not just on women but on family. Beyond that, I’ve seen a need for a platform to thread all these segments together.
Why Koble?
I spent time finding my new role, employing the same rigour diligencing opportunities as I would have with Panache; the core difference being that, now, my primary currency wasn’t dollars, but time.
I’m not going to write this nearly as well as Sarah Marion, so just know that this, too, is how I felt:
So, why Koble? Koble hit on the healthcare thesis I’d been building at Panache; that women’s health needed a platform to bring together the tech suite that spans TTC (trying to conceive) through infant care.
Today, Koble is a digital health platform for new and growing families. Think MasterClass for prenatal and postpartum care, but with interact-ability built in. In future, we’ll be the horizontal health and community platform for families from planning stage, through to caring for their toddler-aged children.
We’ll be joined by some incredible investors along the way. You’ll hear more on this in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.
There are too many people to thank RE: this journey, so I’ll keep it brief:
- To Swati Matta, CEO @ Koble, for welcoming me into the family.
- To the Panache Ventures team, for pushing me to be curious, enduringly empathetic, championing women, and for forcing me to always have an opinion (a trait that is sometimes difficult for my closet-introverted self).
- To my kick-ass teen mom who has pushed me to new heights, always, and whose leadership makes me so passionate about family health.
Want to join me at Koble? I’m *always* going to be hiring / talking to investors. No need for an opt-in, shoot me a message at althea@koblecares.com
