Meet Elizabeth Bailey, Managing Director of RH Capital
Investor Spotlight
Hi FemWealth Friend!
Concerning half of the human population, women’s health issues, long-time underresearched and underfunded, have an extraordinary potential for not only improving the health and well-being of women and their families but also for the global economy. After all, women make up to 80% of purchasing decisions related to their and their family’s health.
Female investors and founders play an essential role in advancing health equity and innovations for women and girls across life stages, from menarche (first menstrual cycle) to menopause and beyond. Through their ideas, advocacy, and work, women’s health is gaining attention and increasingly more capital.
Elizabeth Bailey, Managing Director at RH Capital is one of the leading advocates and check writers in women’s health in the US. She and her team are on a mission to advance women’s health through investments in innovations that can significantly improve women’s health, as well as address issues of equity and access to care.
In 2022, the firm raised over $40 million dollars in capital commitments to tackle reproductive and maternal health equity in the US. Its portfolio includes AOA (ovarian cancer detection), Cirqle (contraception), and Vitralabs (IVF).
FW: What motivated you to start RH Capital and what is the firm’s mission?
EB: Women’s health underlies all human health given that we birth 100% of the population, and yet it has historically been underinvested in. At the same time, we know that venture capital helps to bring innovations to market 3X faster and can generate strong financial returns, but it has not been used for the benefit of women’s health.
So to our all-women founding RH Capital team - in the face of large, untapped markets with enormous need and an exciting pipeline of early-stage innovations - it was a no-brainer to focus the venture capital model on improving women’s health.
Our mission is to advance women’s health through investments in innovations that can significantly improve women’s health, as well as address issues of equity and access to care.
FW: What is your investment thesis and how do you source your deal flow?
EB: Our investment strategy centers on health equity, and we invest in early-stage startups that promise to revolutionize women’s healthcare, through significantly improving treatment and diagnosis, expanding access to care, making care more affordable and/or addressing systemic barriers to care.
We have priority areas in reproductive and maternal health, where we’re looking to address major health disparities both along gender and racial lines, but we also invest outside of those areas where we see good opportunities.
We source deal flow in a myriad of ways, and as we’ve become better known in the ecosystem, companies are more easily finding us (visit our website’s pitch form)! Our team attends a growing number of industry conferences, many of them now showcasing startups in the women’s health arena, and we serve as judges and get to see the pipeline. We also have an incredible network of co-investors, both women’s health-focused and more generalist funds (as well as strategic), whom we meet with regularly to share deal flow and opportunities. And finally, we have gotten to know some of the leading academic researchers in women’s health to be ready to translate their cutting-edge work from the lab into a startup. The good news is, the pipeline in women’s health has seen exponential growth over the last several years, with no intention of slowing down.
FW: What type of companies are you looking to back?
EB: We invest across the healthcare continuum from life sciences to medical devices and diagnostics all the way to digital health and tech-enabled services companies. We typically back early-stage companies, but we are open to later-stage companies as well (Series B financings and beyond).
Beyond looking for companies that we think have strong financial return potential, we want to back entrepreneurs that are mission-driven and have a commitment to health equity.
FW: What recommendations do you have for your portfolio companies navigating the uncertain macro-environment and, in particular, the policy changes in reproductive health in the US?
The policy environment around women’s health is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you have the incredibly regressive policies of government such as the SCOTUS Dobbs decision and the many states enacting restrictive laws around reproductive health. On the other hand, you have some really encouraging policies emerging at both the state and federal level around maternal health care, such as Medicaid benefits during and after pregnancy, doula coverage, etc.
Our advice to startups is three-fold:
1. Know the legal and regulatory environment in the states where you operating, because it is constantly shifting;
2. Look to ride the wave of new policies that are helping to expand access to women’s healthcare; and
3. Create a diversified product/service offering so that you mitigate some of the political and regulatory risks.
Despite some major setbacks, we still see enormous opportunities for startups in areas such as contraception and maternal health.
FW: What are, in your opinion, the essential steps toward closing the gender, racial, and ethnic disparities in healthcare, in the US?
I wish I had a silver bullet, but the problems are so complex, that we’ll need solutions that are as intersectional and multi-faceted. There are things we all can do, such as using our voice in whatever way we can to call out these disparities and acknowledge that there is not a level playing field for everyone when it comes to health.
We need to talk openly about issues such as menopause, endometriosis, and contraception. We need to acknowledge the devastating disparities in maternal health outcomes for Black women.
We also need to make sure the conversation involves the most marginalized and vulnerable members of our community to ensure that their voices are heard. In that same vein, we need to develop solutions that directly and intentionally address health equity, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
As investors, we believe that the private sector has an important role to play and that investing in companies that prioritize health equity is essential to closing these massive gender and racial disparities in the US.
For more information, visit rhcapital.vc