Aoifinn Devitt: This episode is supported by PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets. PIMCO invests their clients’ capital in income and credit opportunities that span the liquidity spectrum, leveraging their decades of experience navigating complex debt markets. Their flexible capital base and deep relationships with issuers have helped them become one of the world’s largest providers of traditional and alternative investment solutions a valued financing partner. Visit pimco.com to learn more. Welcome to the second collaboration between Monumental Me and 50 Faces Productions. Monumental Me and the Mindshare Podcast help women access the tools needed to thrive in life and in work. 50 Faces Productions and the 50 Faces Podcast are dedicated to showcasing inspiring people and their career journeys. This series captures key insights and current trends from women dedicated to innovation and discovery in women’s health in particular, as well as in healthcare more broadly. Focusing on women in healthcare, wellness, and health tech, we hear about the funding gaps, technological advances, and awareness campaigns that are bringing this issue out of the shadows and into improving lives. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast. A podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of people in investment, medicine, and science by focusing on people and their stories. I’m joined today by Jessica Carr, who’s the founder and managing director of Coyote Ventures, an investment firm that focuses on backing founders who are solving problems that disproportionately affect overlooked populations with a foundation in women’s health. She’s also a limited partner of Portfolia FemTech II fund, designed for women who want to back entrepreneurial companies for returns and impact. Among other advisory roles. Welcome, Jessica. Thanks for joining me today.
Jessica: Thank you for having me. Well, let’s start with your career journey.
Aoifinn Devitt: Can you talk a bit about your background, where you grew up, what you studied, and how you first became interested in healthcare and investing?
Jessica: Great. Yes, it’s a bit of a journey, so I’ll start from the beginning. I was born and raised in Amarillo, Texas, so it’s in the far west, northwest of Texas Panhandle, and it’s a small city, about 200,000 people. And my dad is a dentist and my mom is a recently retired OB-GYN nurse. She just retired last year. So I grew up around science and medicine. And when I was 14 years old, I actually started working in my dad’s dentist office. I was very nerdy and wanted to work instead of play sports. So I started off just filing charts. By the time I was 18, I was a fully licensed dental assistant and I really loved helping patients. But I also really loved the front office, taking payments, making appointments, and my favorite part was actually taking the cash to the bank. So I, I think there was an intersection of many things that was maybe predictive of my future right then and there, but definitely a lot of zigzags along the journey. So when I went to college, I went to Texas State, which is outside of Austin, San Marcos. It’s a very beautiful town with a river. And I was pre-med, thought that I would explore either doctor or dentist path. So I started studying biology and chemistry, all the pre-med classes. And I really think my first year, freshman year chemistry professors, I actually really nerded out on chemistry, which was ironic because in high school I hated it. And the only class I got a C in was biology actually, cuz I didn’t like memorizing things. And I felt like with chemistry you could actually understand things. So I started joining different research labs and changed my major to biochem. I was also a philosophy major just because I thought it was a really fun balance. So I, a few years in, decided to focus on research instead of going into med school. And so I had a few opportunities. I did a summer at Berkeley under the Amgen Scholars Program. And joined a lab there, was really successful in helping a research project get published, and after that decided to go to graduate school for biochem. So I started as a PhD student at UC San Diego and joined a research lab there focused on microbiome health. And after 2 years, I finished my master’s and realized that I wanted to work on something really practical, tangible, instead of just writing papers, just as a personal decision for my interest. So I decided to leave with the master’s and fortunately got connected with Impossible Foods in the early days. So it was less than a year old. My professor at Berkeley was friends with the founder of Impossible Foods, so I was really excited. It was exactly what I wanted, something that was impactful, tangible, but also using my science background. I was doing some R&D that was biochem related. So it was definitely a perfect job. It was very, very fun launching new products that are changing the way we think about meat and food in general. So I was at Impossible for 6 years. I co-authored some of the patents. I helped with the initial formulation and launch of the burger. And after that, realized I really liked the early days of the companies. I was meeting a lot of idea stage companies, and I just felt a lot more excitement around starting something new. So I decided to leave Impossible once it was launched and scaling and worked with about a dozen companies over 2 years, very much in the idea stages of both food tech as well as health and wellness. And I felt really excited about getting closer to the health and wellness side since that was sort of in my origin. And so I got a lot of experience working with a variety of different founders and realized that not just the ability to consult founders but also write checks would be more impactful. So I definitely was always interested in investing, but I don’t think I got a lot of exposure to it having gone so deep on the science side. So I realized that I really wanted to make an impact that way. So I briefly joined another fund. They were a little more generalist impact, and it was there that I started to see women’s health as a huge opportunity. And there was a few companies paving the way, being good examples of companies able to, you know, hit significant milestones and raise at significant valuations. So, you know, Maven being a unicorn in the space, for example, has definitely helped catapult other companies. So I developed the thesis for Coyote and decided that it made more sense for me to raise a fund of my own rather than invest out of a more generalist fund. And so Coyote was born, launched in 2021, and it’s been growing ever since then.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, it’s certainly a really interesting background to this point. One question before we discuss Coyote and the opportunity set there. Working in Impossible Foods in a fund or entity like this that is at really at a point of massive growth, I don’t know whether you would consider it a startup or where it was on that trajectory, but what did that teach you about work practices, innovation, and in a way, what did you learn from there that you now bring into your current venture role?
Jessica: Yeah, it’s a really good question. I think that there’s so many transferable learnings from being in a startup in a totally new field. Food tech was really emerging at that time, and I think some of the attitudes of Impossible is really translated into what’s hopefully a successful end story. But, you know, it’s already grown and scaled, and it’s already successful by some accounts. It’s still private, so some people confuse it with Beyond Meat, which is public. But I think a few things— one of it, the founder was a really genius biochemist, and you he’s, know, one of the smartest people I worked with. And it took a little training for me to get used to his work style, but a lot of it was like, we’re better off building our own things in our own ways rather than using something that’s already out there, which was definitely a non-conventional way of thinking but really panned out for success for them. So even a small example was I was trying to compile a list of meat flavor compounds, and I was just like, let’s just go and look at which ones are in the publications and make a list and do metadata analysis. And he was like, no, we will use our instrumentation and make our own list. And we ended up doing both. But I thought that that was, you know, a new way of thinking of like, oh, we’re doing it all ourselves. And even some of the ways we built databases were all internal. And so I do think that there’s room for collaboration at the same time. But I do think that in some ways it’s like sometimes the best way is to do it yourself. And so seeing founders who have sort of that ability is really important. And I think just understanding the level of innovation, it’s definitely just a training that I’ve received being from Impossible and being around really innovative companies. I think that there’s a lot of companies that are slightly improving something, or maybe they’re just plugging in like one simple technology and it’s not a pure innovation. So I think the definition of Coyote is understanding what we define as an exciting innovation that can change the future versus something that is kind of just a Band-Aid.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really interesting. I gotta latch onto that. Like, what is here to last, essentially? What’s gonna be the, that, that changes? One quick thing though, just again on mindset, did you learn anything from working inside a, a successful startup to full-scale company in that way about the mindset that’s needed and about the founder always necessarily being the one who can take it along a growth journey and about the mindset of the employees that is optimal? Inside a group like that?
Jessica: Yeah, there was a lot of amazing teamwork, especially in the beginning. We didn’t have really as much defined roles. And so even my very first day at the company, they were like, yeah, wear some clothes you don’t care about. We’re going to be out in the fields harvesting plants. And yeah, I was like, yeah, I don’t need to be in a lab because my title is research associate. And I think that’s a lot of what you learn as well and how you can qualify some people that we think could be talented but have had their whole careers in more corporate roles might not always understand. I think the phrase is overused, but, you know, wearing multiple hats, I think that that’s definitely something that’s really needed and not have the attitude of like this, you know, assembling IKEA furniture for the office, for example, like that’s not below us, it’s like teamwork.
Aoifinn Devitt: I love it. And now let’s move to Coyote. So let’s talk so about, what’s your mission there and your overarching goal?
Jessica: Yeah, so our mission is improving lives of people who have been overlooked and really focused on women for our first fund. But I think you can see how that can really grow. A lot of places where women have been overlooked is intersectional with women of color as well. So a lot of the health disparities for women are worsened for BIPOC. And so we’re really looking to have a lot of ways in which we’re improving women’s lives and lives of all people overlooked. But starting there, and what would be.
Aoifinn Devitt: Some of the technologies that excite you today, or innovations that you’re either looking at that are in your portfolio or maybe might make their way in?
Jessica: Definitely. We’re heavily focused on digital health right now and have a big thesis around what makes a successful digital health company. And so when COVID hit, it really accelerated adoption of telehealth. But at this point, a lot of the companies that may have been overvalued in telehealth, telehealth for XYZ, haven’t fully moved the needle. And so what we’re seeing right now is telehealth may be a component, but there should be like an entire digital platform that’s defined the health outcomes that they’re improving. So one example is a company we invested in called Malama Health, and they’re working on Solutions for high-risk pregnancies, and their first use case is gestational diabetes. So when someone’s diagnosed with gestational diabetes, they have to measure their blood glucose many times a day, write down every, you know, everything they eat, any exercise. So obviously opportunity to make an app for that. So this isn’t just a D2C app though. They’re an entire platform that has a consumer angle, but also that data integrates with their healthcare provider. EHR, and they’re working with, you know, payers. So this is paid for. And the bottom line of why I went into all that example is that they’re measuring health outcomes. And so they’ve actually been able to show over a 30% reduction in preterm births, which is also associated with a lot of other sort of less risk for long-term diabetes risk, less risk for cardiovascular risk. And the payers are not paying for C-sections instead of natural delivery. So what we really like about this company as an example is they can use telehealth as part of the platform, but really it’s more about holistic health and how they’re interacting with patients every day because patients are not seeing their doctors every day. There’s other things that happen in between doctor’s visits. So how do you intersect on a lot of these daily activities to optimize health and also prove that you’re optimizing health at the same time.
Aoifinn Devitt: And what would you say is the current state of investment in women’s health? Clearly you have highlighted it as an area of opportunity. Do you think it gets the same attention on the venture capital field?
Jessica: Well, it depends on what you’re comparing it to, but no, not really. I mean, even Rock Health has put out within digital health how many solutions are focused on women. And so it is pretty low. I’ll find the exact number, but it is underrepresented in venture funding. And even within the venture funding that women’s health is receiving, it’s mostly still focused on maternal health and fertility. And I know I just gave a maternal health example, and it is very important to optimize for maternal health, but there’s so many other areas of women’s lives that are not getting funded. Another company we invested in is Betterleaf. They’re focused on bereavement care. I just was thinking about how little resources go into, you know, end-of-life care, for example. And so they do sort of disproportionately impact women. So there’s definitely need for more investment, although I would say it is a very strong and growing subcategory of health, but it should represent more since there’s just so many areas of health that affect women. And it’s not just maternal health. It’s also like autoimmune disease impacts 80% of women and receives very little funding. So, you know, it can be a problem in the investment community, but also in the R&D community. So the White House now has launched $12 billion of funding in the US. They’ll be able to fund projects internationally as well. So the first initiative is the Sprint for Women’s Health by ARPA-H, which should be committing about $100 million. And this is focused on R&D, which they’re definitely focusing on what R&D projects could translate into fundable enterprises as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: And of course, there are other ways of raising visibility, and sometimes it comes down to an individual level. And recently on LinkedIn, a real estate agent has announced proceeds of real estate sales that she will allocate to creative ventures, which was great not only to underscore the underinvestment in the space but also to highlight the work that you’re doing. Can you talk a little bit about that and other ways that you’re raising visibility?
Jessica: Yeah, yeah, that was Melinda Moore. She’s selling some real estate in LA and growing her reach in which area she’ll be representing. So definitely was a really innovative way to raise awareness around She’s working also with some celebrities like the former model mentioned in the article that might not have on their radar investing in venture. And a lot of folks do tend to think of, you know, helping people as philanthropy only. So it is important to raise awareness that we do make positive impact and we do report on both impact metrics and diversity of our portfolio., but it’s, you know, you can make returns on it at the same time. And so that’s a really important message to reach, especially as women who wanna make impact are coming into more and more wealth and will be majority holders of new generation of wealth. And so it is important to get the message out in many different ways. And Melinda found a very creative way to do it. So excited.
Aoifinn Devitt: It was, it was great. And just to get technical for a little bit in terms of the opportunity around a venture opportunity, I suppose what would be the entry points for, is it angel investors, institutional investors, as well as what kind of returns and time horizon do you think in this area, not your fund in particular, but just in this area that investors need to bear in mind? And given the sort of size and what stage are you investing in, what kind of exits, I suppose, do you think are on the horizon? A lot of questions in there.
Jessica: Definitely in the weeds a little bit, but we’re operating as a traditional venture fund, so we have the traditional 2 and 20 and 10-year fund life, which these days does typically get extended about 2 years. And one reason we are focusing on digital health is that a lot of these technologies can be scalable more quickly. I do think if you ask people who are investing in more biopharma, I tend to think that costs a lot more and takes longer. But we have seen examples of digital health companies that can exit and that 8 to 10-year horizon at over a billion-dollar exit. So we are targeting those types of returns that could return the whole fund. So it is hard when you look at it, like how many companies can achieve that and what the amount takes to return the fund when you assume somewhere between 50 to 75% do not. It comes down to the power law of depending on a few companies less than 20%, but realistically more like 1 to 2 out of the 25 to 30 we’ll invest in will hit that target return. And so that’s why we do have to be pretty strict looking at financial projections of companies, even though yes, they are made up, they are made up with logic and thoughtfulness, hopefully. And if they’re not, then I’m sort of like, how can you return that if you don’t even have a goal? So Hopefully that answers your question.
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, absolutely. And then just here to take the question a little further about visibility and attention, we’ve spoken about the fem health area. How about as a venture capitalist in an emerging fund? We met actually at a Women in VC conference, I believe, and those events are great in terms of raising awareness of women in VC. How would you maybe characterize what it’s like for a woman in VC right now in terms of the fundraising experience, the level, percentage going into female founders, female venture capitalists? Do you have any sense of that?
Jessica: Yeah, of course. And I’m trying to move away from some of the language because I think it’s unfortunate, but it might be overstated about the 2% funding going to female founders. Like, our track record is to make an impact in there where all of the CEOs we’ve invested in have been women, and we don’t actually have a mandate. So we’re working really hard to fix that and co-investing with preferred female emerging managers for the most part. So I’m trying to move away from language of how hard it is. I even talked to men and it’s hard for them. So this downturn has really had a negative impact for now. And there was one man who raising a fund of funds who told me only 4% of fund managers raising are hitting their fund targets. So I don’t want to harp on it being the fault of a woman. But I will say in my experience, women are raising less, you know, target fund size than men, and it’s taking longer. So those are my observations. I don’t want to be negative about it. I definitely wish I had a larger fund size and more AUM and quicker to raise, but I’m not alone in that wish. So hopefully by raising awareness and great podcasts like yours and other ways to reach people that this will continue to improve.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I know your involvement is passive in Portfolia, but is there anything that your work there has taught you about this landscape or the experience of other founders or women seeking to back founders?
Jessica: I think it’s really important to bring this up because I’m a passive LP in one of their funds and definitely wanna support their work as much as I can. What I do like about what they’re doing is they created these sub-$10 million funds. And the reason in the US to do sub-$10 million is you can have a maximum of 250 investors. If you’re above $10 million, it’s 99. I have no idea why that’s the law, but what that did was create a lot of opportunity for minimum check size being $10,000. And so a lot of first-time LPs are coming in through portfolio and learning the ropes. And what they really focus on is education about women investing specifically. So they’ll have calls where they have the founders pitching, they have anyone can volunteer as contributing to diligence. So we’re not setting up our fund in that way because we’re less focused on education, but we do have a lot of LPs you who, know, learned the ropes at Portfolya and became comfortable investing larger check sizes than that. So I definitely appreciate the community that they have cultivated. And I think they’re doing really great work.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I think I’ve spoken to other people who work with similar organizations and so much of it’s about empowerment, education, and just basically the network effect of becoming either an angel investor or a backer of entrepreneurs. You actually build a network, you build credibility, and there’s a, a great snowballing that can happen there. So networking is definitely key. That was actually, it was another podcast guest we discussed that. So I’d love to move now to some reflections. So looking back at your career so far, at your experience as a venture capitalist and working with founders, any lessons learned, setbacks maybe that you’ve learned lessons from?
Jessica: Yeah, I mean, one is this is all about working with people. And in my career, I do think there are times I reflect on people I’ve worked with that I, I wish that we would have maintained better relationships even back 10, 15 years ago. And there are some that I, I maintain good relationships with and some that I feel like were a little bit of missed opportunity of maintaining a good relationship there. And so I think that that’s one lesson learned is even all the way back to graduate school in your first career or your first job is always doing your best and forming good relationships with the people you’re working with. And I think lots of setbacks in terms of feeling setback, but not actually being setback, being confused. Like every time I left an opportunity, like leaving the PhD program or quitting at impossible. A lot of it is, am I doing the right thing? Just questioning what’s next. Is this risk worth it? And yeah, I think that I would’ve been feeling a lot better if I could have like relaxed a little bit more and, and trusted the process a little bit more.
Aoifinn Devitt: And in terms of any mentors, we’ve spoken a lot about the importance of mentors. Did you have any sponsor, mentor? I know you mentioned some people in your college days who maybe affected your path, but anyone or even a role model that has affected your career path in any way?
Jessica: I think a lot of small ones. I wish I could point to just one person that was a major one, but I think I have a lot of small ones and a lot of ones who might not even fully realize their importance. Like I mentioned, early freshman year professors, even all throughout college being also a philosophy major, some of those professors. And then, you know, in graduate school, I do keep in good touch with my PI who was leading the lab. He was a great influence. I think founder of Impossible and some of the colleagues there are great influences. I don’t always do a good job communicating back and saying their importance, but yeah. And then a lot of people that I don’t actually know that I’ve followed and read about can be influential. And I would say in my personal life, some friends that I admire and even some yoga teachers. I actually have two yoga teacher trainings under my belt and went to India for a while. So a lot of people from that community and, and teachers from that community as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: Definitely the yoga teachers have a font of wisdom that runs very deep. Our last question is around any words of wisdom, creed, or motto that you live by. Anything you can leave us with there?
Jessica: Yes, the yoga reference just led into that. I read this book a while ago and this phrase really stuck out to me. It’s very silly, but it’s, why settle for a banana when you can have nirvana? And it’s just kind of silly. It was like my mantra the first time I ran a marathon. It’s just like, I don’t know, it’s like a phrase that chose me, but I, I think it is kind of a theme of Having not settled and having trusted, you know, wherever I sort of have jumped off cliffs without knowing where to land, I guess. But yeah, that, I think that mantra was supporting me there, even though it sounds pretty silly when I say it out loud.
Aoifinn Devitt: I love it. Well, let’s all keep striving for nirvana. Jessica, it’s been such a pleasure to hear from you the mission behind Coyote and what drives you, the quest to raise visibility, bring funding, and really bring into the foreground these issues that are important important to all of us, and that I think we have to amplify over and over again. So thank you so much for the work you’re doing, for the network you’re building, and for sharing your insights here with us.
Jessica: Thank you. It’s been really great talking with you as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: Thank you for listening to this podcast made in collaboration with Monumental Me and 50 Faces Productions. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring professionals and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
Aoifinn Devitt: This episode is supported by PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets. PIMCO invests their clients’ capital in income and credit opportunities that span the liquidity spectrum, leveraging their decades of experience navigating complex debt markets. Their flexible capital base and deep relationships with issuers have helped them become one of the world’s largest providers of traditional and alternative investment solutions a valued financing partner. Visit pimco.com to learn more. Welcome to the second collaboration between Monumental Me and 50 Faces Productions. Monumental Me and the Mindshare Podcast help women access the tools needed to thrive in life and in work. 50 Faces Productions and the 50 Faces Podcast are dedicated to showcasing inspiring people and their career journeys. This series captures key insights and current trends from women dedicated to innovation and discovery in women’s health in particular, as well as in healthcare more broadly. Focusing on women in healthcare, wellness, and health tech, we hear about the funding gaps, technological advances, and awareness campaigns that are bringing this issue out of the shadows and into improving lives. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast. A podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of people in investment, medicine, and science by focusing on people and their stories. I’m joined today by Jessica Carr, who’s the founder and managing director of Coyote Ventures, an investment firm that focuses on backing founders who are solving problems that disproportionately affect overlooked populations with a foundation in women’s health. She’s also a limited partner of Portfolia FemTech II fund, designed for women who want to back entrepreneurial companies for returns and impact. Among other advisory roles. Welcome, Jessica. Thanks for joining me today.
Jessica: Thank you for having me. Well, let’s start with your career journey.
Aoifinn Devitt: Can you talk a bit about your background, where you grew up, what you studied, and how you first became interested in healthcare and investing?
Jessica: Great. Yes, it’s a bit of a journey, so I’ll start from the beginning. I was born and raised in Amarillo, Texas, so it’s in the far west, northwest of Texas Panhandle, and it’s a small city, about 200,000 people. And my dad is a dentist and my mom is a recently retired OB-GYN nurse. She just retired last year. So I grew up around science and medicine. And when I was 14 years old, I actually started working in my dad’s dentist office. I was very nerdy and wanted to work instead of play sports. So I started off just filing charts. By the time I was 18, I was a fully licensed dental assistant and I really loved helping patients. But I also really loved the front office, taking payments, making appointments, and my favorite part was actually taking the cash to the bank. So I, I think there was an intersection of many things that was maybe predictive of my future right then and there, but definitely a lot of zigzags along the journey. So when I went to college, I went to Texas State, which is outside of Austin, San Marcos. It’s a very beautiful town with a river. And I was pre-med, thought that I would explore either doctor or dentist path. So I started studying biology and chemistry, all the pre-med classes. And I really think my first year, freshman year chemistry professors, I actually really nerded out on chemistry, which was ironic because in high school I hated it. And the only class I got a C in was biology actually, cuz I didn’t like memorizing things. And I felt like with chemistry you could actually understand things. So I started joining different research labs and changed my major to biochem. I was also a philosophy major just because I thought it was a really fun balance. So I, a few years in, decided to focus on research instead of going into med school. And so I had a few opportunities. I did a summer at Berkeley under the Amgen Scholars Program. And joined a lab there, was really successful in helping a research project get published, and after that decided to go to graduate school for biochem. So I started as a PhD student at UC San Diego and joined a research lab there focused on microbiome health. And after 2 years, I finished my master’s and realized that I wanted to work on something really practical, tangible, instead of just writing papers, just as a personal decision for my interest. So I decided to leave with the master’s and fortunately got connected with Impossible Foods in the early days. So it was less than a year old. My professor at Berkeley was friends with the founder of Impossible Foods, so I was really excited. It was exactly what I wanted, something that was impactful, tangible, but also using my science background. I was doing some R&D that was biochem related. So it was definitely a perfect job. It was very, very fun launching new products that are changing the way we think about meat and food in general. So I was at Impossible for 6 years. I co-authored some of the patents. I helped with the initial formulation and launch of the burger. And after that, realized I really liked the early days of the companies. I was meeting a lot of idea stage companies, and I just felt a lot more excitement around starting something new. So I decided to leave Impossible once it was launched and scaling and worked with about a dozen companies over 2 years, very much in the idea stages of both food tech as well as health and wellness. And I felt really excited about getting closer to the health and wellness side since that was sort of in my origin. And so I got a lot of experience working with a variety of different founders and realized that not just the ability to consult founders but also write checks would be more impactful. So I definitely was always interested in investing, but I don’t think I got a lot of exposure to it having gone so deep on the science side. So I realized that I really wanted to make an impact that way. So I briefly joined another fund. They were a little more generalist impact, and it was there that I started to see women’s health as a huge opportunity. And there was a few companies paving the way, being good examples of companies able to, you know, hit significant milestones and raise at significant valuations. So, you know, Maven being a unicorn in the space, for example, has definitely helped catapult other companies. So I developed the thesis for Coyote and decided that it made more sense for me to raise a fund of my own rather than invest out of a more generalist fund. And so Coyote was born, launched in 2021, and it’s been growing ever since then.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, it’s certainly a really interesting background to this point. One question before we discuss Coyote and the opportunity set there. Working in Impossible Foods in a fund or entity like this that is at really at a point of massive growth, I don’t know whether you would consider it a startup or where it was on that trajectory, but what did that teach you about work practices, innovation, and in a way, what did you learn from there that you now bring into your current venture role?
Jessica: Yeah, it’s a really good question. I think that there’s so many transferable learnings from being in a startup in a totally new field. Food tech was really emerging at that time, and I think some of the attitudes of Impossible is really translated into what’s hopefully a successful end story. But, you know, it’s already grown and scaled, and it’s already successful by some accounts. It’s still private, so some people confuse it with Beyond Meat, which is public. But I think a few things— one of it, the founder was a really genius biochemist, and you he’s, know, one of the smartest people I worked with. And it took a little training for me to get used to his work style, but a lot of it was like, we’re better off building our own things in our own ways rather than using something that’s already out there, which was definitely a non-conventional way of thinking but really panned out for success for them. So even a small example was I was trying to compile a list of meat flavor compounds, and I was just like, let’s just go and look at which ones are in the publications and make a list and do metadata analysis. And he was like, no, we will use our instrumentation and make our own list. And we ended up doing both. But I thought that that was, you know, a new way of thinking of like, oh, we’re doing it all ourselves. And even some of the ways we built databases were all internal. And so I do think that there’s room for collaboration at the same time. But I do think that in some ways it’s like sometimes the best way is to do it yourself. And so seeing founders who have sort of that ability is really important. And I think just understanding the level of innovation, it’s definitely just a training that I’ve received being from Impossible and being around really innovative companies. I think that there’s a lot of companies that are slightly improving something, or maybe they’re just plugging in like one simple technology and it’s not a pure innovation. So I think the definition of Coyote is understanding what we define as an exciting innovation that can change the future versus something that is kind of just a Band-Aid.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really interesting. I gotta latch onto that. Like, what is here to last, essentially? What’s gonna be the, that, that changes? One quick thing though, just again on mindset, did you learn anything from working inside a, a successful startup to full-scale company in that way about the mindset that’s needed and about the founder always necessarily being the one who can take it along a growth journey and about the mindset of the employees that is optimal? Inside a group like that?
Jessica: Yeah, there was a lot of amazing teamwork, especially in the beginning. We didn’t have really as much defined roles. And so even my very first day at the company, they were like, yeah, wear some clothes you don’t care about. We’re going to be out in the fields harvesting plants. And yeah, I was like, yeah, I don’t need to be in a lab because my title is research associate. And I think that’s a lot of what you learn as well and how you can qualify some people that we think could be talented but have had their whole careers in more corporate roles might not always understand. I think the phrase is overused, but, you know, wearing multiple hats, I think that that’s definitely something that’s really needed and not have the attitude of like this, you know, assembling IKEA furniture for the office, for example, like that’s not below us, it’s like teamwork.
Aoifinn Devitt: I love it. And now let’s move to Coyote. So let’s talk so about, what’s your mission there and your overarching goal?
Jessica: Yeah, so our mission is improving lives of people who have been overlooked and really focused on women for our first fund. But I think you can see how that can really grow. A lot of places where women have been overlooked is intersectional with women of color as well. So a lot of the health disparities for women are worsened for BIPOC. And so we’re really looking to have a lot of ways in which we’re improving women’s lives and lives of all people overlooked. But starting there, and what would be.
Aoifinn Devitt: Some of the technologies that excite you today, or innovations that you’re either looking at that are in your portfolio or maybe might make their way in?
Jessica: Definitely. We’re heavily focused on digital health right now and have a big thesis around what makes a successful digital health company. And so when COVID hit, it really accelerated adoption of telehealth. But at this point, a lot of the companies that may have been overvalued in telehealth, telehealth for XYZ, haven’t fully moved the needle. And so what we’re seeing right now is telehealth may be a component, but there should be like an entire digital platform that’s defined the health outcomes that they’re improving. So one example is a company we invested in called Malama Health, and they’re working on Solutions for high-risk pregnancies, and their first use case is gestational diabetes. So when someone’s diagnosed with gestational diabetes, they have to measure their blood glucose many times a day, write down every, you know, everything they eat, any exercise. So obviously opportunity to make an app for that. So this isn’t just a D2C app though. They’re an entire platform that has a consumer angle, but also that data integrates with their healthcare provider. EHR, and they’re working with, you know, payers. So this is paid for. And the bottom line of why I went into all that example is that they’re measuring health outcomes. And so they’ve actually been able to show over a 30% reduction in preterm births, which is also associated with a lot of other sort of less risk for long-term diabetes risk, less risk for cardiovascular risk. And the payers are not paying for C-sections instead of natural delivery. So what we really like about this company as an example is they can use telehealth as part of the platform, but really it’s more about holistic health and how they’re interacting with patients every day because patients are not seeing their doctors every day. There’s other things that happen in between doctor’s visits. So how do you intersect on a lot of these daily activities to optimize health and also prove that you’re optimizing health at the same time.
Aoifinn Devitt: And what would you say is the current state of investment in women’s health? Clearly you have highlighted it as an area of opportunity. Do you think it gets the same attention on the venture capital field?
Jessica: Well, it depends on what you’re comparing it to, but no, not really. I mean, even Rock Health has put out within digital health how many solutions are focused on women. And so it is pretty low. I’ll find the exact number, but it is underrepresented in venture funding. And even within the venture funding that women’s health is receiving, it’s mostly still focused on maternal health and fertility. And I know I just gave a maternal health example, and it is very important to optimize for maternal health, but there’s so many other areas of women’s lives that are not getting funded. Another company we invested in is Betterleaf. They’re focused on bereavement care. I just was thinking about how little resources go into, you know, end-of-life care, for example. And so they do sort of disproportionately impact women. So there’s definitely need for more investment, although I would say it is a very strong and growing subcategory of health, but it should represent more since there’s just so many areas of health that affect women. And it’s not just maternal health. It’s also like autoimmune disease impacts 80% of women and receives very little funding. So, you know, it can be a problem in the investment community, but also in the R&D community. So the White House now has launched $12 billion of funding in the US. They’ll be able to fund projects internationally as well. So the first initiative is the Sprint for Women’s Health by ARPA-H, which should be committing about $100 million. And this is focused on R&D, which they’re definitely focusing on what R&D projects could translate into fundable enterprises as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: And of course, there are other ways of raising visibility, and sometimes it comes down to an individual level. And recently on LinkedIn, a real estate agent has announced proceeds of real estate sales that she will allocate to creative ventures, which was great not only to underscore the underinvestment in the space but also to highlight the work that you’re doing. Can you talk a little bit about that and other ways that you’re raising visibility?
Jessica: Yeah, yeah, that was Melinda Moore. She’s selling some real estate in LA and growing her reach in which area she’ll be representing. So definitely was a really innovative way to raise awareness around She’s working also with some celebrities like the former model mentioned in the article that might not have on their radar investing in venture. And a lot of folks do tend to think of, you know, helping people as philanthropy only. So it is important to raise awareness that we do make positive impact and we do report on both impact metrics and diversity of our portfolio., but it’s, you know, you can make returns on it at the same time. And so that’s a really important message to reach, especially as women who wanna make impact are coming into more and more wealth and will be majority holders of new generation of wealth. And so it is important to get the message out in many different ways. And Melinda found a very creative way to do it. So excited.
Aoifinn Devitt: It was, it was great. And just to get technical for a little bit in terms of the opportunity around a venture opportunity, I suppose what would be the entry points for, is it angel investors, institutional investors, as well as what kind of returns and time horizon do you think in this area, not your fund in particular, but just in this area that investors need to bear in mind? And given the sort of size and what stage are you investing in, what kind of exits, I suppose, do you think are on the horizon? A lot of questions in there.
Jessica: Definitely in the weeds a little bit, but we’re operating as a traditional venture fund, so we have the traditional 2 and 20 and 10-year fund life, which these days does typically get extended about 2 years. And one reason we are focusing on digital health is that a lot of these technologies can be scalable more quickly. I do think if you ask people who are investing in more biopharma, I tend to think that costs a lot more and takes longer. But we have seen examples of digital health companies that can exit and that 8 to 10-year horizon at over a billion-dollar exit. So we are targeting those types of returns that could return the whole fund. So it is hard when you look at it, like how many companies can achieve that and what the amount takes to return the fund when you assume somewhere between 50 to 75% do not. It comes down to the power law of depending on a few companies less than 20%, but realistically more like 1 to 2 out of the 25 to 30 we’ll invest in will hit that target return. And so that’s why we do have to be pretty strict looking at financial projections of companies, even though yes, they are made up, they are made up with logic and thoughtfulness, hopefully. And if they’re not, then I’m sort of like, how can you return that if you don’t even have a goal? So Hopefully that answers your question.
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, absolutely. And then just here to take the question a little further about visibility and attention, we’ve spoken about the fem health area. How about as a venture capitalist in an emerging fund? We met actually at a Women in VC conference, I believe, and those events are great in terms of raising awareness of women in VC. How would you maybe characterize what it’s like for a woman in VC right now in terms of the fundraising experience, the level, percentage going into female founders, female venture capitalists? Do you have any sense of that?
Jessica: Yeah, of course. And I’m trying to move away from some of the language because I think it’s unfortunate, but it might be overstated about the 2% funding going to female founders. Like, our track record is to make an impact in there where all of the CEOs we’ve invested in have been women, and we don’t actually have a mandate. So we’re working really hard to fix that and co-investing with preferred female emerging managers for the most part. So I’m trying to move away from language of how hard it is. I even talked to men and it’s hard for them. So this downturn has really had a negative impact for now. And there was one man who raising a fund of funds who told me only 4% of fund managers raising are hitting their fund targets. So I don’t want to harp on it being the fault of a woman. But I will say in my experience, women are raising less, you know, target fund size than men, and it’s taking longer. So those are my observations. I don’t want to be negative about it. I definitely wish I had a larger fund size and more AUM and quicker to raise, but I’m not alone in that wish. So hopefully by raising awareness and great podcasts like yours and other ways to reach people that this will continue to improve.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I know your involvement is passive in Portfolia, but is there anything that your work there has taught you about this landscape or the experience of other founders or women seeking to back founders?
Jessica: I think it’s really important to bring this up because I’m a passive LP in one of their funds and definitely wanna support their work as much as I can. What I do like about what they’re doing is they created these sub-$10 million funds. And the reason in the US to do sub-$10 million is you can have a maximum of 250 investors. If you’re above $10 million, it’s 99. I have no idea why that’s the law, but what that did was create a lot of opportunity for minimum check size being $10,000. And so a lot of first-time LPs are coming in through portfolio and learning the ropes. And what they really focus on is education about women investing specifically. So they’ll have calls where they have the founders pitching, they have anyone can volunteer as contributing to diligence. So we’re not setting up our fund in that way because we’re less focused on education, but we do have a lot of LPs you who, know, learned the ropes at Portfolya and became comfortable investing larger check sizes than that. So I definitely appreciate the community that they have cultivated. And I think they’re doing really great work.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I think I’ve spoken to other people who work with similar organizations and so much of it’s about empowerment, education, and just basically the network effect of becoming either an angel investor or a backer of entrepreneurs. You actually build a network, you build credibility, and there’s a, a great snowballing that can happen there. So networking is definitely key. That was actually, it was another podcast guest we discussed that. So I’d love to move now to some reflections. So looking back at your career so far, at your experience as a venture capitalist and working with founders, any lessons learned, setbacks maybe that you’ve learned lessons from?
Jessica: Yeah, I mean, one is this is all about working with people. And in my career, I do think there are times I reflect on people I’ve worked with that I, I wish that we would have maintained better relationships even back 10, 15 years ago. And there are some that I, I maintain good relationships with and some that I feel like were a little bit of missed opportunity of maintaining a good relationship there. And so I think that that’s one lesson learned is even all the way back to graduate school in your first career or your first job is always doing your best and forming good relationships with the people you’re working with. And I think lots of setbacks in terms of feeling setback, but not actually being setback, being confused. Like every time I left an opportunity, like leaving the PhD program or quitting at impossible. A lot of it is, am I doing the right thing? Just questioning what’s next. Is this risk worth it? And yeah, I think that I would’ve been feeling a lot better if I could have like relaxed a little bit more and, and trusted the process a little bit more.
Aoifinn Devitt: And in terms of any mentors, we’ve spoken a lot about the importance of mentors. Did you have any sponsor, mentor? I know you mentioned some people in your college days who maybe affected your path, but anyone or even a role model that has affected your career path in any way?
Jessica: I think a lot of small ones. I wish I could point to just one person that was a major one, but I think I have a lot of small ones and a lot of ones who might not even fully realize their importance. Like I mentioned, early freshman year professors, even all throughout college being also a philosophy major, some of those professors. And then, you know, in graduate school, I do keep in good touch with my PI who was leading the lab. He was a great influence. I think founder of Impossible and some of the colleagues there are great influences. I don’t always do a good job communicating back and saying their importance, but yeah. And then a lot of people that I don’t actually know that I’ve followed and read about can be influential. And I would say in my personal life, some friends that I admire and even some yoga teachers. I actually have two yoga teacher trainings under my belt and went to India for a while. So a lot of people from that community and, and teachers from that community as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: Definitely the yoga teachers have a font of wisdom that runs very deep. Our last question is around any words of wisdom, creed, or motto that you live by. Anything you can leave us with there?
Jessica: Yes, the yoga reference just led into that. I read this book a while ago and this phrase really stuck out to me. It’s very silly, but it’s, why settle for a banana when you can have nirvana? And it’s just kind of silly. It was like my mantra the first time I ran a marathon. It’s just like, I don’t know, it’s like a phrase that chose me, but I, I think it is kind of a theme of Having not settled and having trusted, you know, wherever I sort of have jumped off cliffs without knowing where to land, I guess. But yeah, that, I think that mantra was supporting me there, even though it sounds pretty silly when I say it out loud.
Aoifinn Devitt: I love it. Well, let’s all keep striving for nirvana. Jessica, it’s been such a pleasure to hear from you the mission behind Coyote and what drives you, the quest to raise visibility, bring funding, and really bring into the foreground these issues that are important important to all of us, and that I think we have to amplify over and over again. So thank you so much for the work you’re doing, for the network you’re building, and for sharing your insights here with us.
Jessica: Thank you. It’s been really great talking with you as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: Thank you for listening to this podcast made in collaboration with Monumental Me and 50 Faces Productions. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring professionals and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
