Joe Kahn-Wicht

Second-Time Founders Don’t Fundraise Like You - Here’s Why They do not send decks. They do not ask for intros. They raise in half the time and walk into the room with leverage you never see coming. In this new issue of HealthVC, we break down how experienced founders: Pre-bake the round long before the launch Sequence LPs to build layered momentum Use co-invest dynamics to reduce friction Manufacture FOMO before the first call is made If you’ve ever felt like your fundraising process is slower, harder, or more uncertain than others, this explains why. 📬 Read it now on Substack 

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Why Africa's Telehealth Market is About to Explode 4,000 patients in, and the most common question I get is: "Why men's health? Why Africa? Why now?" Here's why: Africa's telehealth market is projected to reach $4.8B by 2027, growing at 37% annually. But here's what the reports don't capture, the human side of this revolution. The Reality on the Ground: - 60% of Africans live over 50km from the nearest specialist - Mobile penetration has hit 80%+ across major markets - Yet men's health remains the most underserved vertical At his.doctor, we're seeing something remarkable: men from Lagos to Nairobi choosing their phone over a 3-hour trip to a clinic. Not because it's trendy, but because it finally makes sense. What's Driving This Shift?  → Trust in digital payments (thanks to mobile money revolution) → Younger demographic comfortable with online services → COVID normalized virtual healthcare consultations → Increasing awareness around preventive health But the biggest driver? Privacy. In cultures where health issues carry stigma, anonymity isn't a feature, it's the entire value proposition. We're not just building a telemedicine platform. We're reimagining how an entire generation of African men access healthcare. The opportunity isn't coming. It's already here. #AfricaTech #Telehealth #HealthTech #DigitalTransformation #Innovation

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I’m thrilled to officially announce our $3M seed investment in Propel People, a company we built inside the 1848 Ventures studio to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the #construction industry today: the skilled #labor shortage. For small and medium-sized contractors, hiring isn't just a challenge. It's the number one threat to their growth, profitability, and safety. With 94% of contractors struggling to find qualified workers, it’s clear that traditional hiring methods aren't built for the trades. That’s why we built Propel People. It’s a mobile-first, AI-powered hiring platform designed for how construction actually works: in the field. By leveraging smart candidate ranking, instant #SMS-based screening, and a fully #bilingual interface, Propel helps contractors build great crews faster and more efficiently. I’m also thrilled to formally announce that industry veteran Dexter Bachelder is at the helm as CEO. Having worked with Dexter and the team over the last few months, we've already seen the impact of his leadership. His 25 years of experience scaling construction tech companies will be instrumental as Propel People enters this initial stage of growth. This investment reinforces our core thesis at 1848 Ventures: building AI-native companies that solve fundamental pain points for the #SMBs that form the backbone of our economy. A huge congratulations to Dexter and the entire Propel People team on this milestone. We are incredibly proud to partner with you to support the people who build our world. Read the full announcement below. #constructiontech #venturecapital #seedfunding #ai #skilledtrades #smb

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I’ve spoken to over 2 dozen MDs at PE firms I can confidently say that the arb of figuring out how to implement Vertical AI at portfolio companies is very real right now It will fundamentally change underwriting for those who can do it predictably and unlock generational returns. Most are aware they need to act. Very few have.

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I met Craig Limoli, Founder and CEO of Wellsheet, in 2019. Craig was presenting at the Ai4 Healthcare Conference in New York City, hosted by Michael J Weiss . It was one of those early gatherings focused on AI in healthcare - well before the recent wave of hype. Craig took the stage to share how Wellsheet was using AI to help doctors and nurses make better, faster decisions at the point of care with its Care Team Copilot. Wellsheet’s technology was impressive, but its real edge came from Craig’s deep understanding of the problem he was solving. Before founding Wellsheet, he worked at IBM as a strategy consultant, helping large health systems assess their tech stacks. He saw firsthand that the tools available were clunky, fragmented, and ultimately failed to support the clinicians doing the hardest work. It’s a story as old as time - the very systems IBM was selling to hospitals weren’t meeting their actual needs. So, Craig left IBM, enrolled in the The Wharton School MBA program to sharpen his entrepreneurial skills, and decided to build the product those systems truly needed - a Care Team Copilot designed to summarize patient charts, streamline documentation, and support real-time collaboration between physicians and nurses. We stayed in touch after that first meeting, and a few months later, Wellsheet raised its $4.5 million Series A, which our team at SpringTide Ventures led. The round came together just as the world was shutting down in the early months of the pandemic. Understandably, Craig was nervous that investors might pull back as uncertainty swept through the market, but we didn’t. We believed in Wellsheet’s mission, and more importantly, in Craig’s ability to execute against it. Despite the chaos of 2020, he stayed focused and transparent - qualities that made us even more confident we were backing the right founder at the right time. Fast forward to today: Wellsheet is now live at hundreds of hospitals and continues to outperform much larger competitors. In fact, when a major national health system evaluated solutions from both Google and Wellsheet, they unanimously chose Wellsheet. The healthcare industry faces an unprecedented shortage of doctors, nurses, and frontline clinicians. Wellsheet’s technology helps address this challenge by automating the most time-consuming and manual parts of clinical work. For physicians, it means no more laborious data entry; for executives, it means decisions are queued up for them - clear, informed, and ready to act on. By streamlining chart reviews, documentation, and decision support, Wellsheet enables care teams to focus on what truly matters: delivering better patient outcomes. We’re proud to support, and keep championing founders like Craig and his mission-driven team at Wellsheet!

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Year in Review: 𝗙𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗱, 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 2025 delivered major wins: product breakthroughs at Envisify, gained full ownership, network expansion as Fractional CEO, and Ambitio's growth alongside powerhouse women execs. The falls? They mattered just as much, shaping core values, resilience under fire, and standing taller after every hit. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗔𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱 More bold learning (what others call "failures"), purpose-driven leadership, and relentless focus on scalability & innovation across business, friendships, and life. This morning, while listening to a podcast, one line stuck with me: 𝘼𝙫𝙤𝙞𝙙 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙚𝙙𝙚 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣. Here's to 2026, the Year of the Fire Horse: fierce, unstoppable, ready to charge 🔥 #motivation #leadership #growth #innovation

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There's rampant under-appreciation right now that the heady pace of change in health care x tech is BOTH bc of AI, AND insiders (especially clinicians) awakening to the bs they were fed their entire careers about how slow things need to change, how little can be done outside the walls of an office or hospital, and how detrimental it is to patients if they go outside their lane. COVID was an awakening for more than just consumers. The confluence of this happening with AI is magical bc it lowered the barriers to entry + funding for the same people to start building their ideas, on top of more clinicians than ever before having real technical skills (thanks informatics!). Do not underweight the awakening of the clinician hackers in your optimism for this moment.

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Boards are supposed to help founders. Over the past 19 years, I've watched many trap them instead. As companies scale, many boards turn from insight to oversight and stop doing what founders actually need: Help making big, hard decisions. Early boards tend to be small, the board members are close to the business and highly invested in it. They argue from first principles. They help founders think. Later-stage boards often look more impressive on paper - they have more independent directors, committees and process. Somewhere along the way, collective problem solving gets replaced with oversight. The board shifts from helping the CEO make better decisions to monitoring decisions that have already been made. Strategy discussions get safer, real debate gets rarer and meetings become more about risk management than judgment. This usually coincides with the introduction of more professional board members. For better or worse, they often optimize for governance, optics, and liability management. That’s their job. But it’s not always what the company needs in moments of real uncertainty. Then, CEOs stop using them as thought partners. That’s a problem. So what should founders do? A few principles that help: • Keep the board as small as you can for as long as you can • Add directors for new insight they bring, not what boxes they check • Treat board seats like senior hires, not trophies • Design meetings for debate rather than reporting • Be explicit about when you want input vs approval Good boards should improve decision-making. If your board isn’t making you think harder, it’s probably not doing its job.

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