Why We Invested: Folia Health

In March, as a newly formed angel group, TBD Angels broke the ice with our first investment when we were fortunate enough to participate in Folia Health’s fundraise. The Folia team has built a platform to enable precision care for complex disease. This platform captures the observations of patients and caregivers, and through marrying this data with outside health insights and technology, they’re able to drive health improvements of individuals and the wider population, and relieve some of the mental burden that comes with a complex condition.

Different angel investors assume varying strategies in making a Yes/No decision on their investments where most of these decisions are driven by some priority of people, product, and market.

• When several of us first met with founders Nell and Dan, their passion for the cause was evident and their career success and backgrounds made it immediately clear that Nell and Dan had nailed the people aspect.
• They proved their product prowess in creating a user-facing app for data collection, an incentive program to enhance the activity amongst their user base and had laid out a clear roadmap for how this data will drive value across numerous stakeholders. Finally, the team had successfully uncovered early product-market-fit in securing revenue-generating commercial contracts within the Cystic Fibrosis space and had attracted users from 43 US States and 300 US cities.
• The personal health market is one that is ripe for innovation whereby data and intelligent logic will be fuel for a software engine to generate immeasurable value for human wellbeing. Folia is enabling its users to provide data and the team is building the software to drive towards positive health outcomes.

With TBD Angels having been only weeks old, our process was the stereotypical “building the airplane while in the air,” identifying toolsets for deal management, establishing processes, recruiting value-driving angel investors to our group while evangelizing and closing the Folia Health deal. These early steps are helping our group lay a foundation for our future investments — several of which are moving to a close this month.

With user growth, new business and product usage experiencing hockey stick growth, the future is bright and the roadmap opportunities are wide. This is where TBD Angels moves beyond capital investment and layers value as a sounding board for the founders as they scale the team, the business and execute on the strategic vision.

Our group is passionate about helping provide advice and guidance to founders, paying forward the help others provided us throughout our careers. The fourteen talented investors on this deal look forward to sharing their breadth of relevant experience across numerous industries and functional areas with Folia.

Be sure to keep an eye on the Folia Health team — we are sure to see some amazing moves by the team as they execute on their vision!

Jason Burke is one of the members of TBD Angels