Fellowship Spotlight: Capita3

Growing up with a biology teacher dad and nurse mom, Pamela York always had proximity to healthcare but never saw herself following in her parents' footsteps – until a serious mountain biking accident changed everything. With a PhD in electrical engineering and two successful startups under her belt, it was devastating to hear that doctors believed she'd never work again. York embarked on an arduous healing journey that took her outside traditional medicine. "I learned that under the right conditions, the body has an incredible capacity to heal," York shared. "The healthcare system wasn't fully reflecting the knowledge around health, healing, and prevention, so it became my personal mission to change that."

Kathleen Tune's mission was shaped by watching her parents build and grow their business, which ultimately did not survive difficult economic times. "Their resilience allowed them to reset from that failure, and then rebuild, and they eventually succeeded," she shares. "Witnessing that journey ingrained in me the need to build resiliency in business environments. The entrepreneurs in our portfolio are the lifeblood of everything we do. My experience informs the empathy I have for them."

Capita3: From Proof of Concept to Full Partnership

York and Tune’s combined personal and professional experiences would prove to be the perfect foundation for partnership. York launched Capita3 as a proof-of-concept Fund I with Tune as a founding advisor. "Kathy brought deep healthcare investing expertise and a track record of successful exits," York explains. Tune transitioned from advisor to full partner and together they have a deep commitment and shared vision for the future of human health.

Today, Capita3 is a venture capital firm targeting $25M for Fund II, investing in early-stage companies led by non-traditional founders driven to disrupt our options for health and healing. With 18 companies across Funds I and II, the firm has built a compelling track record. "We provide catalytic capital at important inflection points," York explains, "and as experienced operators, we help our companies build the path to adoption and scale."

Full-Stack Support: Capital Plus Leadership Development

In addition to funding, the firm's platform employs a human capital strategy designed to maximize founder performance through leadership development. "One of the most profound experiences in my health journey was learning to stand in the face of my fears," York explained. "As with health, I saw that under the right conditions, one can quickly transcend fear and then go on to achieve things that previously were out of reach. It quickly became clear how this could translate to the startup world."

Capita3 provides full-stack leadership development to equip founders with the essential skills for company building and milestone achievement. This is done through leadership assessments, coaching, and their cohort-based accelerator, Leader Launch, which over 800 people have completed. Leader Launch guides innovators and founders through a rapid process of discovery where they can transcend insecurities, blind spots, and other internal barriers that hinder business success.

Capita3 invests in companies with nontraditional founders. While they'll sometimes be the first institutional check for companies, they're also dedicating a portion of their capital to follow-on investments. Their level of involvement varies across different companies and is based on what each company needs.

In one situation, Capita3 invested in a pre-launch company. "We helped them understand they needed a different corporate structure for venture financing," York says. The firm's support extended beyond advice, guiding the company through the legal restructuring and co-leading their first financing round, and becoming Board Chair. York also saw that the company would need to shift its identity and business model. "We catalyzed their thinking around becoming a scalable tech company and helped them build and communicate that model to investors."

For another Capita3 Fund I company, the team led financing despite being a modest fund. Tune shares, "A very small fund typically wouldn't be leading deals, but there are times when companies need that kind of approach and we have the experience to do this work. We put forward the term sheet, led the deal, and went on the board as if we were a check that was 5 to 10 times larger than our actual investment. We stepped up to help the company close their round of financing and move onto business operations."

Investing in Solutions and People Alike

Tune and York share an interest in seeing more women in the VC space, informed by their career experiences in male-dominated fields of science and finance. "The rooms were not well-rounded," Tune states, "and the money was flowing to a narrow set of founder archetypes." When they started to shape Capita3, they set out to address the lack of representation of women while also addressing gaps in healthcare. "If we want healthcare to transform – and – to provide the things that we need as women," York says, "then we need to put money behind the people solving these problems, which tend to be women. "

Evidence-Based and Clinically Backed Breakthrough Technologies

The common thread that runs throughout the Capita3 portfolio is evidence-based and clinically backed breakthrough technology. "We want to disrupt our options for health and healing," Tune says. "In addition to requiring cutting-edge technology, we need teams with a deep understanding of the healthcare system and all of the players.” Capita3 is primarily focused on solutions that are outside of hospital-based settings. "Healthcare is increasingly being provided in places other than the hospital, so a lot of what we invest in include preventative care, home-based, or telehealth opportunities," Tune explains.

One opportunity that Capita3 has invested in is Persephone Biosciences, a company that developed a food additive that can correct the gut microbiome over time. "90% of babies are born without the gut microbiome required for proper brain development, nervous system development, and other keys to well-being," York explains. Given that clinical evidence points to a tie between inadequate gut microbiome and high occurrences of cancers and autoimmune disorders, addressing this issue is poised to reap great benefits. "If it works – and we believe it's going to – it will be massively disruptive," York says with excitement.

Another impressive company in the Capita3 portfolio is Gabbi, a virtual platform to reduce the risk of late-stage breast cancer diagnoses. At just 24 years old, shortly after losing her mother to breast cancer, the founder of Gabbi was diagnosed with breast cancer herself. Fueled by her desire to help others get out ahead of critical breast cancer diagnoses, she created Gabbi. The Gabbi platform provides convenient remote care to answer questions, help women understand their risk, order tests or imaging, and connect them with specialists. Crucially, Gabbi boasts a much shorter diagnosis timeline than traditional care models. "Gabbi reaches a population that wouldn't otherwise be seen until they already had breast cancer," Tune notes.

Poised for Success: A Depth of Relevant Experience

Before pivoting to venture capital, York received a PhD in electrical engineering and worked extensively in technology commercialization, where she has decades of experience in monetizing breakthrough technologies. Tune holds an advanced degree in biology and brings decades of healthcare operating and investing experience. "Both Kathy and I have been deeply embedded in the work of building products and getting them to market," York says.

Before coming to work together, York and Tune each built startups on their own. While Tune's are still private companies, York helped build her two companies to successful exits. In addition to their current Capita3 portfolio of 18 investments, the pair have collectively been involved in over 50 exits.

Participating in the VC Include Fellowship

"What stands out for me about the VC Include Fellowship," Tune reflects, "is the very small cohort size, which has many layers of advantage." She cites the opportunity to get to know people more intimately; the quality and candor of conversation; and connections to alumni and other expert speakers as key advantages. "In some situations, people tend to be a little guarded and less open," she adds, "but there's none of that in this case. Everything was very open and supportive."

"What's so clear with VCI is their 100% focus on helping us grow," York shares. "It's easy to get busy doing the work in front of you, but within such a small cohort there was no escaping talking about who you really are and why that matters." She acknowledges that, especially with seasoned professionals like her and Tune, there's often something other than a lack of preparation preventing people from pitching the way they really want or telling the stories that need to be told. "The program has helped both of us to be better storytellers and more authentic leaders," she says. "That's gold in this environment."

York and Tune have incredible backgrounds as operators and fund managers. This allowed them to learn from the Fellowship's programming as well as share their own experience to support the rest of the cohort. We're eager to see all the ways the Capita3 team leverages their learning to expand their impact as they continue to connect people with innovative and effective healthcare solutions.