Healthcare venture firm Seae Ventures' founders had previously set up corporate VC unit Zaffre Investments only to face issues surrounding independence and regional focus.

Seae Ventures, the impact venture firm set up by three ex-members of corporate VC vehicle Zaffre Investments, is aiming to reduce the equity gap in US healthcare. The firm was set up to target healthcare technology developers with women and/or BIPOC (black and indigenous people of colour) founders, and it recently closed its debut fund at $107m. Managing partners Jason Robart, Pete Sally and Tuoyo Lewis had all worked together at Zaffre, which invested on behalf of health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and it gave them an insight into the barriers minority founders face. “We knew that, through our investing experience at Blue Cross, the venture community was not serving the needs of women and BIPOC founders well at all,” Robart said. “We knew that the gulf of health disparities was growing, it wasn’t getting narrower, and looking at traditionally underserved populations, whether it’s low-income populations, racial and ethnic minority populations, rural populations, we knew there was significant inequity within the healthcare community in this country.” Jason Robart (left) and Pete Sally (right) The challenge any corporate venture group faces The overwhelming majority of US startups still have white male founders, and connections to prestigious universities like Stanford and Harvard can still be key to raising money. Startups tackling problems affecting communities outside the white, male, urban and financially healthy demographics can struggle to raise funding, an issue amplified by the influence of those within and surrounding a corporate investor. If a corporate has established commercial partnerships for instance, it can complicate investment relationships that could potentially boost up-and-coming competitors. “The challenge I think any corporate venture group faces is that you have all the stakeholders of that corporation,” Robart said. “If you’re a health insurer in Massachusetts, which we were, not only did we have Blue Cross Blue Shield as an entity in Massachusetts, but we had the provider community who had contractual relationships with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, we had health systems, state regulators, all of the corporate accounts that were buying health insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. “When you put all of the interests of all of those groups together it actually narrows the playing field of opportunities you might pursue for fear of running afoul of the interests of one particular group of another.” Another issue in Zaffre’s case was regionality. Its parent company was focused on Massachusetts, the US state with the second largest average income, which…

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Robert Lavine

Robert Lavine is special features editor for Global Venturing.