The Digest for Health Transformers & Changemakers
a16z General Partner Julie Yoo joined StartUp Health co-founder Unity Stoakes for a wide-ranging fireside chat with our member community, and she didn't hold back. Yoo makes the case that healthcare is positioned to benefit from AI more than any other industry, not in spite of its structural challenges but because of them. She also challenges some long-held assumptions about how health tech companies should be built, explains why she now actively encourages the compound business model she once cautioned founders against, and unpacks her controversial thesis on infinite healthcare and what it would mean for access, cost, and payment models.
If you're building in health tech right now, this conversation was made for you. Discussions like this one happen regularly inside the StartUp Health community, and if you want to be in the room in person, join us on June 16 in New York City for the inaugural Civic Health Forum. It's a half-day event at Civic Hall bringing together investors, founders, AI leaders, and policymakers around one question: how do we keep everyone healthy in the first place?
What if the next major breakthrough in health was not a new drug, device, or app, but a new way to invest in prevention before illness begins?
That is the idea behind the inaugural Civic Health Forum 2026, a half-day convening on June 16 in New York City that brings together investors, AI leaders, payors, providers, government officials, and founders around one urgent challenge: building health systems that work for the other 99%.
Co-hosted by Fedcap, DHHF, and StartUp Health, the Civic Health Forum is designed to move beyond ideas toward real outcomes, including partnerships, contracts, and capital flowing into the largest undercapitalized markets in health.
This is where civic infrastructure, prevention, and innovation meet, and where health moonshots launch.
From Shanghai to Seoul, Austin to Louvain-la-Neuve, this week's digital health funding spans brain-machine interfaces, retinal AI diagnostics, neurological disorder detection, and the infrastructure layer powering next-generation health insurance – a wide-ranging week with neurotech at its center.
📈 Read on Health Transformer Journal
Kim Fisher has spent her career building things, backing things, and translating science into impact. Now she's bringing all of it to bear as Chief Impact Officer of StartUp Health's Food as Medicine Moonshot, and she believes the wave entrepreneurs have been waiting for is finally here.
🔗 Read, Watch, or Listen on Health Transformer Journal
🍏 Join the Food as Medicine Moonshot Community
With more than 2,400 videos, 11,000 subscribers, and nearly a million views on YouTube, our video channel spotlights Health Transformers in action, showcasing how the right mindset, moonshot vision, and the spirit of an entrepreneur make anything possible. Recent videos feature Imaginostics, cliexa, Epicured, 7wire Ventures, datosX, Mocingbird, VIBEcare, and more.
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🚀 Boost Your Brand with a Health Moonshot Community Membership
Raj Amin and Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, PhD, Co-founders of Arcade Therapeutics, on the company’s StarStarter for Anxiety app being selected as one of the first Digital Badge recipients by APA Labs.
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Yair Saperstein, MD, MPH, CEO & Co-founder of Avo, on the company raising a $10 million Series A to be the clinical AI platform powered by trusted knowledge.
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Victor Penev, CEO & Founder of Edamam, on the company being selected by Forward Fooding for the Foodtech 500 list for the fourth year in a row.
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Chris Turner, CEO & Co-founder of HealthBook+, on the launch of HealthBook+ 2.0, featuring enhanced PaiGE, an agentic medical partner.
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Pinaki Dasgupta, CEO & Founder of Hindsait, on the company’s partnership with Korcomptenz to transform healthcare operations with responsible AI.
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Allyson Schrier and Bill Uniowski, Co-founders of Zinnia, on the company being awarded an NIH Grant to develop tools for dementia caregivers in partnership with Duke University.
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