The AI for Health Fund launched a new residency program this week called Hub Treewhich aims to finance early-stage health AI startups from university laboratories.
The program will hold cohort-based residencies in Los Altos, California. It aims to bridge the gap between research and venture-backed companies by providing funding, mentoring and development infrastructure at the very early stages of a startup, often before the company is even officially established.
Among those involved in sourcing and mentoring early founders are prominent Silicon Valley figures such as Tim Draper, billionaire founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetsonand Anne Wojcicki, entrepreneur and co-founder of the embattled company 23andMe.
Mary Minno, the program’s founder, investor and former Google executive, was inspired to launch Treehub after a personal healthcare experience showed her that the system was not designed to reliably keep patients alive, despite the obvious dedication of clinicians.
“It started in a deeply personal place. I was postpartum with my second child when a family member became very ill, and I had a front-row seat to the state of our medical system — and I couldn’t unsee what I saw,” Minno said.
She then teamed up with Esther Wojcicki – Anne’s mother, as well as anthropologist Janet and former YouTube CEO Susan – to launch the residency program, through which they began investing in October.
Minno noted that Treehub funds startups in three areas: precision outcomes, care effectiveness and new science.
The program now has 12 companies in its portfolio, she said. Some include a stealth company she called “Uber for dermatology”; a stealth brain computer interface startup led by Forest neurotechnology co-founder Will Biederman; And Clear Healthwhich offers non-invasive hormonal monitoring for women.
“For more than half of our portfolio companies, we introduce founders to lawyers who help them incorporate. So when I say we’re in the early stages, we’re extremely early,” Minno emphasized.
She added that Treehub helps founders with the nuts and bolts of building a business.
“We help from the beginning, like finding the right co-founders, creating the entity and doing all the legal paperwork, until what we call graduation. Graduation for every company is different. Some want to launch the big seed round. Some want to join an accelerator. Some aspire to scale into a hospital system,” Minno explained.
While Treehub focuses heavily on early-stage execution, Esther Wojcicki highlighted a more fundamental determinant of success.
For Wojcicki, the most crucial factor determining a startup’s prosperity is not its technical genius, but the founders’ ability to work well together.
“Social and emotional skills – a lot of these founders don’t have them, I’m sorry to say. And it’s not their fault. It’s more the fault of the system. But we try to help them develop these skills that are really important. How to work with each other is kind of the key. And you look around and see all the companies that have failed, and the main thing that they’ve failed at recently is that the founders all started fighting with each other with the others,” she said.
At Treehub, she works to help founders develop these interpersonal skills. Wojcicki also emphasized the importance of humility and adaptability, emphasizing that great founders must be willing to admit when ideas don’t work and pivot.
She believes Treehub’s early-stage approach and emphasis on developing founders – particularly before individuals even consider themselves founders – sets it apart from traditional accelerators.
Minno agreed, saying that by investing so early and focusing on founders rather than fully-grown companies, Treehub can help teams iterate and find viable paths in the right environment. She also noted that, unlike large venture funds that need results in the billions of dollars, Treehub is comfortable backing companies that become sustainable businesses with smaller exits.
Overall, she sees Treehub’s role as more akin to a venture studio: providing hands-on support early on to improve the chances of startups getting on the right trajectory.
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