By MATTHEW HOLT

It's JPM week. Meaning there's a number of startup bros wandering round San Francisco questioning who all these biotech guys and grizzled funding bankers are and why they nonetheless put on fits.

The digital well being children and the VCs they're making an attempt to trace down are unlikely to put on fits. The glory days are lengthy gone. Athenahealth and Venrock now not have competing events (or any events in any respect) and many of the ravenous startup children in search of free booze and meals try to rack up invitations to legislation companies which can be nonetheless charging $1500 an hour for his or her time earlier than their purchasers get it discover that ChatGPT will do the identical for $20 monthly.

However the digital well being enterprise continues, even when a lot of it entails undermining mergers and acquisitions, like final week's Basic Catalyst deal that financed Transcarent's acquisition of Accolade. However I'm probably not right here to speak in regards to the digital healthcare VC market per se.

What I do wish to discuss is who will get VC. This was prompted (based on my sluggish Small Language Mannequin) by a pal who was a CEO and as soon as a star at a fast-growing digital well being firm. She informed me that being a lady was now an energetic barrier to fundraising. Each time a techie on LinkedIn says how they raised $XX million in twelve minutes and not using a pitch deck, you'll see a number of feminine CEOs explode with anger.

You don't want me to repeat the numbers. Girls and minorities discover it troublesome to boost cash. First time founders get an enormous run round. Even when issues have been loopy in 2020-2022, the startup survey I performed confirmed that it was very troublesome for early-stage firms to boost cash. Now it's the apocalypse.

That's to not say some feminine CEOs don't increase. Simply final week, Nema Well being, run by former Well being 2.0 star intern (and now training psychiatrist – which can be extra related!) Sofia Noori raised a $14 million Sequence A to develop its superb PTSD therapeutic program. Maven's Kate Ryder raised one other $125 million late final 12 months to additional develop their girls's well being program, and may see that elusive IPO in the end. And at a JPM social gathering I ran right into a member of Joanna Strober's workforce, which jogged my memory that I believed Midi Well being may need raised an excessive amount of cash when it took in one other $60 million final 12 months, however apparently it's doing gangbusters . There's additionally Equip for Consuming Problems with Kristina Saffran and Erin Parks on the helm (over $95 million up to now) and little question a couple of extra I'm forgetting. However on the whole they’re exceptions.

What is not any exception are the tech bros who’re elevating funds for AI. Clearly the massive gamers listed here are OpenAI, Anthropic et al, who’re knocking down billions to construct their AI infrastructure. Anybody with a 401K might be hoping that every part works out, given how a lot of the worth of Nvidia, Tesla, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple appears to be primarily based on a maybe legendary AI-abundant future. However there may be loads in healthcare. Simply this week, Innovaccer ($275 million), Qventus ($105 million), and Truveta ($320 million) all backed up the truck, all to mix knowledge and AI and hope it would remedy a few of the issues in healthcare dissolve. These CEOs are males. However that's not what I'm complaining about.

You may as well be a person and get away with much more. Manjul Shah, CEO of Hippocratic AI, has run his final firm into the bottom, HealthIQ. In keeping with Katie Jennings of Forbes, he screwed over suppliers, workers and clients not less than $17 million in unpaid payments, and after he left, he personally extracted one other $170,000 from the bankrupt firm. Was he a pariah to the buyers who misplaced greater than $200 million? Not within the least. The identical buyers A16Z and Basic Catalyst instantly gave him one other $50 million to construct an AI nurse chatbot firm, and apparently healthcare techniques are lining as much as purchase it, based on a podcast he shared with Julie final week Yoo from A16Z on Sat. This week, Kleiner Perkins (and extra) raked in one other $141 million.

You may additionally have seen that Ali Parsa, who remodeled $1 billion and in addition crucified all his public market buyers when Babylon Well being collapsed, can also be again. His new firm – an AI assistant launched with some well-known docs, together with Shafi Ahmed – known as Quadrivia AI. The financing just isn’t clear, however Sifted has discovered various recordsdata that point out {that a} Swedish enterprise capital fund is behind it. There may be additionally greater than just a little controversy over whether or not Babylon's demise was only a sequence of dangerous enterprise choices or whether or not Parsa lied in regards to the know-how. (I had Parsa on a couple of panels and at all times discovered him reverent and charming, however you may google Sergei Polevikov's opinion!)

Look, not like Lisa Bari of The Well being Tech Discuss Present, I like the thought of ​​having AI reply sufferers' questions, name them with data, and usually use bots so as to add “redundancy” to the healthcare workforce . I imply, it's simply an extension of what Alex Drane and Eliza (and Silverlink and others) did 15 years in the past. And there may be large potential to make use of AI to really diagnose and deal with. I'm positive Parsa's new AI bot additionally has the potential to enhance doctor care.

However ought to it’s really easy for guys like Shah and Parsa to get again into the sport instantly, given the chaos they left of their wake? Shouldn't VCs have a tough time anointing as saviors the very individuals who simply ruined their earlier clients, companions, workers, and buyers?

However I feel we have already got our reply. Adrian Aoun made an enormous splash with Ahead, closing it after dropping $650 million and abandoning sufferers with out discover and placing 200 folks out of labor. Days later he was again on a podcast saying his buyers needed to offer him extra to start out over. And the largest loser, chaos agent and con man of the previous couple of years, Adam Nuemann of WeWork infamy, was again quickly after with one other $350 million for yet one more actual property startup.

Neumann's benefactor on the ultimate lap was A16Z's Mark Andreesen. Andreesen additionally famously helped finance Trump's 2024 election. That's the best comeback ever by somebody with no morals, ethics or competence.

So I feel not less than some VCs have determined there is no such thing as a disgrace.

(When you're questioning what the title of this piece is, I'm enjoying this blues traditional)