Shows
AJonStartupsDenise Bronner, PhD, CEO of Empactful Ventures: Clinical Trial Best Practices and The Importance of Patient RepresentationAs CEO of Empactful Ventures, Denise Bronner leverages a data-driven approach and over 15 years of industry expertise to empower organizations to redefine their strategies and implement innovative solutions. Drawing on insights from real-world data, she helps companies uncover hidden potential, adapt to evolving landscapes, and position themselves as industry leaders.Prior to founding Empactful Ventures, Denise earned her PhD in microbiology and immunology from the University of Michigan in 2015. Most recently, she held roles at Johnson & Johnson as Director, Senior Global Feasibility Lead, and Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Clinical Trials for...
2025-06-1138 min
AJonStartupsKwame Ulmer, Managing Partner at MedTech Impact Partners: Perspectives on The FDA and The Importance of Regulatory Experts and StrategyAs Managing Partner at MedTech Impact Partners, Kwame Ulmer leverages over twenty years of experience evaluating medical technologies in the government and private sector to answer regulatory questions, develop comprehensive regulatory strategies, and support complex submissions (e.g., de novo, PMA, 510(k)) for companies working with the FDA. He has personally evaluated more than 1,000 medical technologies in his career, and he spent 12 years at the FDA in progressive leadership roles, including Deputy Director and Branch Chief. In addition to his work at MedTech Impact Partners, Kwame is a venture partner at Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health...
2025-06-0437 min
AJonStartupsMatthew West, Founder and CEO of Boom AI: An AI-powered Mental Health App for College StudentsMatthew West, Founder and CEO of Boom AI, has experienced periods of severe anxiety throughout his life. As a child, he never seemed to seamlessly integrate with peers from similar ethnic backgrounds. His independent mindset and love for soccer acted as barriers to connection within his proximal environment, but he developed a strong sense of self through academic and athletic accomplishments, maintaining an ambition to play at the highest levels. Unfortunately, an injury during his junior year of high school reduced his chances of playing professional soccer to zero and led to his first battle with debilitating anxiety.
2025-05-2859 min
AJonStartupsChelcie Taylor, Investor at Notable Capital: Investing in AI and Vertical Voice AgentsAs a multi-stage investor at Notable Capital, Chelcie Taylor spends her time thinking about a future transformed by AI-native and AI-enabled software. She focuses specifically on vertical AI applications, as well as B2B and enterprise software, evaluating deals from inception through later-stage opportunities. Additionally, she co-created the annual SMBTech 50—a list showcasing the most promising private companies building for SMBs.Her journey to venture capital has been highly decorated: she earned her undergraduate degree from Princeton, her MBA from Harvard Business School, and held strategic and operating roles at Google, CBS, and MediaLink be...
2025-05-2130 min
AJonStartupsEldrick Millares, Co-Founder and CEO of Illuminant Surgical: The First Real-time Anatomical Projection System for Spine Surgery and Interventional AccessIlluminant Surgical (YC S22) is building the world’s first real-time anatomical projection system for spine surgery and interventional access-displaying imaging directly onto the patient to give surgeons a view of what’s beneath the skin. It uses artificial intelligence, computer vision, and dynamic projection mapping to make image-guided procedures seamless and accessible for all care settings and specialties.Led by Co-Founder and CEO Eldrick Millares, the company is safely and swiftly developing the system to improve patient outcomes in spinal fusion procedures, its initial beachhead indication.Spinal fusion has...
2025-05-1446 min
AJonStartupsAriel Ganz, GP at Arben Ventures: Early-stage Investing, Precision Medicine, & The Future of HealthArben Ventures is one of the most active pre-seed investors in deep tech health. Led by General Partner Ariel Ganz, the firm has invested in 63 startups over the last 14 months. In this conversation, Ariel and I discuss the following topics: 00:00:06 Ariel's Journey 00:09:25 Arben Ventures 00:20:37 Insights from Starting a Venture Fund 00:23:54 Personalized and Precision Medicine 00:28:12 AI, and Patient Empowerment 00:43:37 Conclusion
2025-04-3043 min
AJonStartupsCollin Wallace, Partner at Lobby Capital: Perishable Knowledge & The Implications of AIFor the first time in human history, the brain’s monopoly on intelligence is being challenged, with LLMs emerging as a disruptive force and quickly gaining computational share. Intelligence is a function of acquisition and application. It’s the ability to acquire knowledge (input data) and to apply it to produce a particular result (output data). LLMs, trained on input data from a meaningful set of humanity’s collective knowledge, provoke the idea that our intelligence is computational, and expected outputs reinforce our emotional resonance with intelligence. As ma...
2025-04-231h 42
AJonStartupsAlexander Cooper, Founder and CEO of Relief Cardiovascular: Reimagining Heart Failure TreatmentMore than 6 million Americans have had their life expectancy reduced by 10 years due to congestive heart failure.
For many of these patients, heart failure management is incredibly burdensome and minimally effective, and, in some cases, surgical treatments are necessary to extend their life and to make modest gains in quality of life.
While at Edwards Life Sciences and CardiAQ, Alexander Cooper spent his time leading development teams to aiming to treat heart failure in the valves. During his tenure, he and his teams contributed to the development of the wo...
2025-02-0442 min
AJonStartupsMichael J. Gardner, MD, Founder and CEO of National Scoliosis Clinic: Eliminating Pain for Scoliosis PatientsAt least once per year, I remember coming to school and learning we would spend the morning in the auditorium going through tests for scoliosis.
The nurses never found a curve in my spine, but I have always associated both of this condition with adolescence because of this experience.
However, I was surprised to learn that over 51 million Americans have developed scoliosis as adults, and half of these individuals (26M) experience pain.
The typical approaches to treat this pain: physical therapy, injections, chiropractic sessions, and pain medications, provide temporary and minimal relief, and only 6% of patients are candidates for...
2025-01-2837 min
AJonStartupsRahul Mahadevan, Founder and CEO of WiTT: Support Registry for Patients with Chronic DiseaseFor many Americans, the diagnosis of a chronic and/or fatal disease is an emotionally heavy revelation. It can come suddenly and unexpectedly, or it can provide long awaited clarity to punctuate a period of uncertainty.
Even with the enemy identified and a plan to treat and/or manage the threat, many patients will fail in their execution because the challenges of life outside of the clinic will demand their attention and resources. The cost of medication will compete for an allocation of the grocery money, time for treatment will compete with time allocated f...
2025-01-2055 min
AJonStartupsAhmed Qureshi, Founder and CEO of Rainfall Health: Expanding Health Access For AllIf you drive two hours outside of any US urban center, and you walk the streets of rural America, the residents of these towns will live a meaningfully shorter life than their urban counterparts.
Approximately 67 million Americans (1 in 5) live in rural areas and achieve materially worse health outcomes due to poor access to specialized healthcare services.
In many areas, the local hospital has been shut down, which creates a medical desert for residents and forces patients to travel up to 4 hours one-way to receive medical treatment.
...
2025-01-0746 min
AJonStartupsTom Stevens, Founder & CEO of Tombot: Realistic Robotic Animals For People With Health AdversitiesAs a special education teacher, Nancy Stevens worked with visual and auditory disabled children and, by many accounts, was the kind of person who would do anything for anybody. She was an independent woman, and could never find a bad word to say about anyone. Later in life, Nancy found love and companionship in her best friend, a Goldendoodle puppy named “Golden Bear.”
Golden Bear was with her in 2011 when Nancy was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia. Golden Bear was with Nancy when her condition progressed and a professional caregiver was required because she lost the ability to care for he...
2024-12-1745 min
AJonStartupsAnuj Khandelwal - Co-Founder & CEO, Empo Health: Easy Remote Patient Monitoring for Diabetic Foot UlcersOn an annual basis, 100K Americans living with diabetes will have an amputation, and within five years of the procedure, around 50% will pass away.
Accounting for one-third of all diabetic healthcare costs annually (estimated $40B), diabetic foot complications continue to persist in a significant number of diabetes patients.
For every ten patients, five will lose sensation in their feet (diabetic neuropathy), leading to one quarter of the patients developing a diabetic foot ulcer in their lifetime and increase the risk of an amputation.
Many of...
2024-12-1035 min
AJonStartupsRachel Kuperman, MD, Founder and CEO of Eysz: Democratizing Diagnosis and Monitoring of Brain DisordersI am pleased to share a conversation that I had with Rachel Kuperman, MD, Founder and CEO of Eysz.
Eysz is on a mission to democratize diagnosis and monitoring of brain disorders.
During her career as a pediatric neurologist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, Rachel experienced the effects of inadequate and scarce diagnostic tools for primary care physicians. Children were referred to Rachel for neurological disorders when the child was likely to be experiencing a psychiatric disorder, causing bottlenecks in delivering care and adding time to waitlists for pati...
2024-11-1948 min
AJonStartupsKristen Ellefson, Founder and CEO of Nurtur: Empowering Moms To Predict and Prevent Postpartum Depression Before Symptoms AppearI am pleased to share a conversation that I had with Kristen Ellefson, Founder and CEO of Nurtur (TechStars ’24). Nurtur is on a mission to empower moms to predict and prevent postpartum depression before symptoms ever appear.
After spending several years in the healthcare industry leading sales teams, Kristen enrolled in MIT Sloan’s Executive MBA program. While there, she was devastated to learn her best friend was suffering from postpartum depression. Motivated by the fear of losing her child, Kristen’s friend withheld information from her doctors, family, and friends that could have led to h...
2024-11-1246 min
AJonStartupsDerek Banyard, MD, MS, MBA: Unlocking A New Universe of Medical Applications by Harnessing The Power of FatRecently, I had a conversation with Derek Banyard, MD, MS, MBA, Founder & CEO of Sayenza Biosciences, who is on a mission to unlock a new universe of medical applications by harnessing the power of body fat to produce stem cell therapeutics for regenerative medicine applications.
As a plastic surgeon, Derek observed how inefficiencies in the operating room during plastic surgery procedures contributed to increased costs for surgeons and increased risk of complications for patients. Now, he’s targeting the source of the inefficiency by building a medical device which aims to automate fat processing, re...
2024-11-0544 min