The American Hospital Association is taking a direct approach to facilitating health equity by providing capital and support to investment outfits emphasizing personalized healthcare startups led by women and people from racial and ethnic minority communities.
The AHA has invested in SteelSky Ventures, a women-led fund with a portfolio focused on maternal health, telehealth and in-home care services and artificial intelligence tools for managing chronic health conditions, the trade group announced Tuesday.
This marks the organization's second such investment in a planned series of four, said Doug Shaw, the AHA's senior vice president for business development. In January, the association joined a group of healthcare organizations and financial institutions that invested $55 million in Jumpstart Nova, a fund led by Marcus Whitney that plans to exclusively support health technology firms with Black founders. AHA has not disclosed the value of its investments.
The association started dabbling in investment with the launch of its first fund in 2019, which it created in partnership with Concord Health Partners. The $50 million pool targeted startups that offered services to hospitals in general. With the latest investments, the AHA is narrowing its focus to personalized health solutions that hospitals can deploy to address health disparities.
The AHA is also trying to increase the capital allocated to funds and businesses led by people from historically marginalized populations. Last year, funding for Black-owned health tech companies made up only 1% of U.S. venture capital, according to data collected by Crunchbase. Investments catered to women's health represented 7% of health tech funding in 2021, according to seed fund Rock Health.