T. A. McCann

New blog out for Pave Health Ventures! If you’re a startup tackling health-related challenges, take a closer look at the intersection of two massive, fast-growing industries: Consumer Health & Wellness and Traditional Healthcare. You might be pleasantly surprised. The opportunity is bigger (and closer) than you think. Read the full blog + subscribe to our Substack for more insights at the intersection of wellness and healthcare: https://lnkd.in/gJ2T6WBK

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Harpoon Ventures + Black Flag is teaming up with Microsoft for Startups to provide founders with access to up to $250,000 in Azure credits, empowering builders to scale faster, train models more efficiently, and access world-class AI infrastructure. What’s included: ⚡ Up to $250K in Azure credits (usable across Azure OpenAI, Grok 3, Llama 4, and more) 💻 On-demand GPU VMs for model training and fine-tuning 🧠 Access to GitHub Enterprise + Microsoft 365 Business Premium 🤝 Dedicated Microsoft technical + GTM support This partnership is designed to give deep-tech and dual-use founders the tools and resources they need to win. To keep pace with an increasingly hostile near peer environment, we need the complete resource stack: political, capital, technological. This is a great addition.

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🚨NEW EPISODE: Recorded live at FUTURE TITANS 2026 - Jeff Perry of Carta sat down with the iconic Seth Levine, co-founder of Foundry. Seth has been in venture for 25 years, built Foundry from scratch as an emerging manager himself, and has backed about 50 emerging manager funds through his fund of funds. He has genuinely seen every side of this table. They went deep on building Foundry, why VCs are in the influence business, not the decision business, and why the concentration problem in venture is not only bad for LPs, but also for the innovation ecosystem overall. And why Seth's new book, Capital Evolution, is so important for the future of America. 🎧 Links to listen... Apple: https://lnkd.in/ehQUQ2EM Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eU4FExpg

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Childcare is a movable barrier and the care economy is workforce infrastructure. Siran Cao dropped so much truth on First Builders this week and shared why even capitalists in a vacuum should care.

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I read the 165-page Cut Through Venture 2025 state of startup funding report so you don’t have to. 📉📈 The 2025 report dropped this week, and it is a beast. Kudos to CTV and Folklore Ventures My full article has 9 interesting things from the report, but here's my top 4: 1. If there is a single defining tension in Australian venture capital right now, it is the shift from celebrating paper valuations to demanding actual returns. LPs are demanding DPI (real cash returns), not paper marks. The secondary market is becoming standard infrastructure. 2. The AI pivot is real (and lucrative). If you raised last year, there’s a high chance you had AI at the front of your deck. It accounted for 61% of capital flows. It wasn't just AI wrappers, though. Investment was deployed across the AI layercake across the application layer, infrastructure layer and model layer 3. On the surface, funding for female founders jumped to 24%. But dig deeper: the top 5 female founders hoovered up 79% of that capital (Airwallex). The "leaky pipeline" at Series B+ is still a major issue. I'm confident we'll see more breakout, later-stage, female-led companies in the next several years. 4. Despite quality deal flow being apparently super high quality, VCs are hesitant to lead a round; there is a bottleneck of investors willing to write the first lead cheque. Founders are having to do more work pre-term sheet to build conviction. Check out my full write-up below, and be sure to head to page 131 for the best quote in the entire report. https://lnkd.in/g_i5TBNj

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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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Seed VC isn’t just in a downturn—it’s facing extinction unless it evolves fast. Great read from Rob Go & David Beisel at NextView Ventures... - YC and mega-funds now dominate the early-stage landscape, squeezing out traditional seed investors - Power law thinking has gone mainstream—everyone’s chasing trillion-dollar outliers - AI isn’t helping seed VCs—it’s raising the stakes, crowding the field, and disrupting VC itself - The middle of the market has collapsed, and excess profits are gone - Hope isn’t a strategy—seed needs a new model, now Link here... https://lnkd.in/ek2MZGhm And if you like this topic, I wrote a piece on venture bifurcating into inception funds and mega funds here: https://lnkd.in/eJz5DmX6 #ai #venturecapital #vc

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If you know... A 10x engineer Who loves the speed and intellectual challenge of early stage but also Wants job stability and Equity diversification then This is the one job that checks all of their boxes

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💰That thought that all funding is smashed and gone in these times? Read about LabStart's program and squash that misinformation. Funding, positivity, and progress are here- be part of it-jump in, cuz the water is warm (and needs conservation, but that's a different convo 💧😉 ) TL;DR: SNAPSHOT: LabStart empowers entrepreneurs—including first-time founders—to commercialize breakthrough climate technologies with: 💲 Up to $100K in funding for entrepreneurs 🚀 Access to frontier climate technologies 🔬 Expert mentorship and guidance 🌎 A community of climate innovators Applications close July 7, 2025. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gSAg-KkU Tova Lobatz Kristy Drutman Jennifer Hanke Felix Antonio Padra Emily Alvarez Emily Chu Carolina Larrahona ImpactPHL Sustain SoCal Chloe R. Rebecca Shirey Green Standards Waste Not Consulting Ashlee Baker, TRUE Advisor Tova Lobatz SOCAP Global The Ecology Center Jonathan Zaidman Eliza Baron Kriss Kokoefer Amit Sharma AQUATRAX USGBC California #ClimateInnovation #ClimateEntrepreneurship

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Ecosystem support can accelerate a climate startup by years. Being selected for Google’s AI for Startups program and receiving an ACT Grant provided RenewCred with more than capital—it provided validation, mentorship, and technical resources. The ACT Grant specifically enabled us to build our DMRV (Digital Measurement, Reporting, Verification) platform for four key use cases: EV fleets, solar energy, biochar, and compressed biogas. From August to December, we’re launching one DMRV per month—momentum made possible by strategic ecosystem partnerships. For founders: seek programs that align with your mission and stage. The right support unlocks velocity. Listen to the full conversation on Breakout Podcast: https://lnkd.in/ef7ivfTx

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Bringing a healthtech or medtech innovation from prototype to product takes more than just validation—it takes foresight. Too many great ideas stall at the point of adoption because key steps weren’t considered early enough. I put together this quick guide to share some of the conversations I’ve been having with founders and investors about how early decisions shape long-term success. Whether you’re building, investing, or advising, I’d love to hear your take. What’s been your biggest surprise moving from prototype to market? If this resonates or sparks ideas, I’d be happy to connect and explore how I can help. #HealthTech #MedTech #Innovation #GoToMarket #ProductStrategy #MarketAdoption

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2026 federal funding update for ecosystem builders A week ago I wrote about where federal innovation funding stands for 2026. Here's what's changed in 7 days: What's now signed into law: The Commerce, Justice, and Science bill passed the Senate 82-15 on January 15 and is headed to the president's desk. This locks in: NSF → $8.75 billion (with protection against disproportionate cuts to any directorate) → Regional Innovation Engines: Up to $200 million EDA → Tech Hubs: $41 million → Build to Scale: $50 million → MEP: $175 million What passed the House, awaiting Senate action: The Financial Services bill passed 341-79 on January 14, confirming: SBA → Entrepreneurial development: $330 million (Congress rejected the proposed cut to $150M) → Regional Innovation Clusters: $9M → Federal and State Technology Partnership (FAST): $9M → Growth Accelerator Fund Competition: $9M What's still in flux: Leaders just released a final bipartisan package for Defense, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education, and Transportation-HUD. The House may vote this week, with the January 30, 2026 deadline approaching. SBIR/STTR authorization remains expired. No new solicitations until reauthorization—though there's been some movement here. There's also a bunch of new AI policy I need to dig into still. The bottom line hasn't changed: You cannot build a 10-year innovation ecosystem on annual appropriations battles. The regions that succeed are strengthening their partnership infrastructure now, and leveraging federal funding as a bonus to accelerate outcomes. See the full analysis: https://lnkd.in/euDxDVkZ

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"So what exactly is a venture studio?" I'm not sure how many times I've had this conversation over the last few years. At least a few times / week. For aspiring venture builder - especially those in institutional settings, 'getting' the model - and understanding how it differs from others - is critical. So, we're starting at the beginning. On March 19, I'm sitting down with Matthew Burris for the first session of the The Venture Studio Forum's University Track Speaker Series. Matt is widely credited for helping to define the venture studio asset class - he co-authored the Venture Studio Index and built the Three-Role Framework that the industry uses to classify studios. He's spent more time researching what makes a studio a studio than anyone I know. If you're at a university, research institution, or economic development org trying to figure out whether a venture studio makes sense for you, this is where to start. Note, this event kicks off a five part-series we're running through the VSF, all focused on helping institutions understand and evaluate the model. Here's the full program: Mar 19: What Is a Venture Studio? Apr 16: University Studio Examples May 21: Funding Mechanisms Jun 18: Finding & Working with Studios Jul 16: Sourcing & Evaluating Founder Talent Registration link in the comments!

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Ride the fractious horse 🐎 Had a blast talking with Harrison Chase from LangChain the other day to a great group of founders, builders and investors about building agentic systems. One learning I shared: our team builds effective agentic systems by spending way more time doing than speculating. 🏇 In other words, we "ride the fractious horse": New models drop daily. New frameworks emerge constantly. Best practices get declared and discarded overnight. By the time you survey the landscape and theorized about how today's reasoning models can serve your system, both the landscape and capabilities have shifted. So we write playbooks instead of adopting them. The only way to develop those playbooks? Build and experiment at the fastest possible rate. ✈️ Wilbur Wright laid a great analogy back in 1901: He'd just realized that existing "standard" measurements of lift and drag were wrong, and that solving flight meant spending serious time actually trying to fly (previous "pilots" had logged minutes, at most, of cumulative airtime across all experiments). From his Chicago speech (this guy was such a clear writer btw): "There are two ways of learning how to ride a fractious horse: one is to get on him and learn by actual practice how each motion and trick may be best met; the other is to sit on a fence and watch the beast awhile, and then retire to the house and at leisure figure out the best way of overcoming his jumps and kicks." "The latter system is the safest; but the former, on the whole, turns out the larger proportion of good riders." As for planes: "It is very much the same in learning to ride a flying machine; if you are looking for perfect safety you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds; but if you really wish to learn you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial." We're not inventing flight, but constantly evolving LLMs and probabilistic workflows won't behave as you hope on first contact. If you want to figure out how to build effective products around those fractious beasts, get on the horse (keyboard) and start riding.

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Skilled labor is the bottleneck in industrial ops. Elevāt's platform basically tries to “productize the expert” using machine signals + docs + prior fixes. Now they have $12M to scale. Congrats to them. In industrial AI, the tech is usually the easy part....adoption is the battle. Curious what you think is the real gating factor:  -- trust (techs believe it’s right and won’t get them hurt),  -- workflow integration (it fits into CMMS/ticketing/parts + works offline/on-device), OR  -- incentives (the field team is rewarded for using it vs “just fixing it their way”). Which one kills deployments most often in your experience?

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Harpoon Ventures + Black Flag is teaming up with Microsoft for Startups to provide founders with access to up to $250,000 in Azure credits, empowering builders to scale faster, train models more efficiently, and access world-class AI infrastructure. What’s included: ⚡Up to $250K in Azure credits (usable across Azure OpenAI, Grok 3, Llama 4, and more) 💻On-demand GPU VMs for model training and fine-tuning 🧠Access to GitHub Enterprise + Microsoft 365 Business Premium 🤝Dedicated Microsoft technical + GTM support This partnership is designed to give deep-tech and dual-use founders the tools and resources they need to win. Because when they win, we all win. 🏴‍☠️

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🧬 This week’s Austin Bio & Health Roundup has funding, recognition, regional momentum, & new PitchBook healthtech data giving us a peek under the hood of the sector. 🧬 💰 Funding & Capital Signals Hello Patient, a conversational AI platform for clinics, closed a $22.5M Series A led by Scale Venture Partners and included participation from Austin-based 8VC, who also joined their seed round. You need to check out their announcement video. Alex is in top form! 🚀 Launches, Expansions, Milestones, and Wins A second piece of Hello Patient news. They launched their platform into veterinary practices as well. 📊 Data PitchBook published an Emerging Tech Research report on Healthtech VC Trends. In 1H 2025, healthtech startups raised $8B, putting it on pace to beat 2023 and 2024 and possibly 2022. Exits are at $4.9B, suggesting this could be the highest year since 2021. Top 5 subsectors over the last 12 months: • Telehealth: $3.2B over 174 deals • EHRs & Clinical Information and Analytics: $2.2B over 76 deals • Care Management: $2.2B over 113 deals • Operations: $1.7B over 84 deals • Analytics: $1.4B over 104 deals 🏆 Recognition Phantom Neuro featured in "25 Healthcare Devices I Fell in Love With" on David Shulkin’s blog. Shulkin is the former U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs. 🤠 Texas Bio Triangle Houston: The Rice Biotech Launch Pad announced another investment, this time from Houston-based Carnrite Ventures. Houston funding Houston! What’s Next? 🤠 🚀 🦾 🧬

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Yesterday we explored the "Medical Orchestrator" thesis — AI expanding what physicians can do, not replacing what only humans can do. Today, CHCF and CalMatters bring us a ground-level proof point: Akido Labs using Scope AI in homeless encampments, with 5,000+ patients seen in LA and Kern counties since 2023. The clinical efficiency gains are measurable. The harder challenge — orchestrating across the MCP, the shelter, the CBO, the ED — is where the real implementation work lives. Stella Tran frames it well: access potential is real, and guardrails around consent, bias, and transparency are non-negotiable. Both things are true simultaneously. This is what building the system looks like. Start with the willing, scale to the system. #CalAIM #HealthcareAI #OrchestrationOverDigitization #Possibilists

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