On November 14, 2024, over 70 entrepreneurs gathered in person at Atlanta Tech Village for the Healthcare Entrepreneurs Meetup Investor Panel — a candid conversation with four investors actively backing healthcare innovation.
Moderated by A.T. Gimbel, the panel featured Becca Shmukler (Laerdal Million Lives Fund), Ryan Collins (Noro-Moseley Partners), Ben Carraway (BIP Ventures), and Suna Lumeh (Portal Innovations LLC). The evening covered everything from what investors look for in early-stage founders to Atlanta’s growing role in the healthcare ecosystem.
Investor Perspectives
Each panelist brought a distinct lens to the conversation. Becca Shmukler described Laerdal’s mission-driven approach — backing companies with the potential to save one million lives. Ryan Collins of Noro-Moseley outlined their focus on growth-stage companies with proven traction in healthcare IT and services. Ben Carraway explained BIP Ventures’ thesis around enterprise software and data-driven businesses. Suna Lumeh shared Portal Innovations’ model of providing lab space and capital to early-stage life science startups.
On investment focus, the panel emphasized the importance of market size, timing, and founder conviction. “Having a deep sense of the customer themselves and what they’re thinking about and being able to articulate that back to the investors… is really important,” said Ben Carraway.
When it came to what they look for in founders, themes of resilience, domain expertise, and coachability surfaced repeatedly. Investors want to see that a founder understands not just the problem they’re solving but the people they’re solving it for — and that they can communicate that clearly.
Navigating the Healthcare Landscape
Regulatory hurdles remain one of the defining challenges in healthcare. The panel discussed how founders can navigate FDA pathways, reimbursement complexity, and compliance requirements without losing momentum. The key is building regulatory strategy into the product roadmap from day one, not as an afterthought.
The panelists shared lessons from companies that successfully crossed the chasm — from early pilot to scale. Common threads included deep hospital relationships, a clear ROI narrative for health system buyers, and patience with long enterprise sales cycles. On common founder mistakes, the consensus was underestimating the sales cycle and overestimating the speed of adoption in incumbent healthcare organizations.
The Future of Healthcare
Looking ahead, the panel was bullish on AI-enabled diagnostics, value-based care infrastructure, and remote patient monitoring. They also flagged that Atlanta’s density of health systems, academic medical centers, and payer organizations gives locally-based startups a meaningful edge for piloting and iterating.
Atlanta’s healthcare ecosystem continues to mature, with more venture capital flowing into the region and a growing network of founders who have done it before. The panel encouraged entrepreneurs to lean into the local network — both for capital and for the clinical partnerships that can make or break a healthcare startup.
Having a deep sense of the customer themselves and what they’re thinking about and being able to articulate that back to the investors (…) is really important.— Ben Carraway, BIP Ventures
Key Takeaways
- Know your customer deeply and articulate their perspective clearly to investors
- Build regulatory strategy into your roadmap from day one
- Expect long enterprise sales cycles and plan your runway accordingly
- Atlanta’s health system density is a real advantage for early pilots
- Coachability and resilience matter as much as domain expertise
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