Alejandro Guerrero

Excited to share that we have closed RA Capital’s $120M Planetary Health Fund. We are bringing RA Capital’s evidence-based, returns-driven approach to companies addressing urgent planetary challenges. Planetary Health is about people, planet, and profits. What sets us apart: • Deep technical and market diligence • Precision capital deployment based on proprietary research • Active support across technology, regulatory strategy, hiring, and scale-up • Focus on market readiness over momentum or funding rounds • Portfolio companies are commercially viable and not reliant on policy tailwinds Our expanding portfolio includes companies like Sortera Technologies (AI-powered metal recycling), AM Batteries (advanced battery manufacturing), and several exciting companies still in stealth. Each is built on strong fundamentals, with clear paths to impact and profitability. Proud to rejoin Kyle Teamey and partner with the RA Capital Management team to help build enduring, high-performing businesses that create both strong returns and lasting impact. The opportunity is real. The timing is right. Let’s build. https://lnkd.in/guU6hktt

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Orange Health Labs has always been committed to six-hour reporting. Not "as fast as possible" but specifically six hours, no exceptions. This one constraint made them build everything differently. They couldn't use standard labs designed for average daily volume - they had to build for peak hourly capacity. They couldn't have doctors at each location, so they built remote pathology, where one doctor reviews slides from multiple cities. They couldn't rely on traditional logistics - so they created dedicated networks covering four times the area of competitors. Now incumbents can't copy it without scrapping their existing infrastructure. They have hundreds of labs built the old way, doctors hired locally, and established logistics. Retrofitting would cost more than starting from scratch, and starting from scratch means abandoning their existing business. I like how Orange Health's edge is that matching their model means incumbents must treat their current infrastructure as sunk cost. This is the kind of advantage that compounds.

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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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🔥 Why We Built MVP — and the Power of Collective Investing When Elan Adler 🩻, Founder & CEO of OneImaging, asked why we decided to build MVP… the truth is simple: Working with Jason Parrott and Manny Menendez Menedez has been a blast 🙌 —and we’re constantly on the lookout for founders who drive real cost savings for employers. 💼💡 We raised $850K from 80+ investors across the digital health industry for Oneimaging. That collective support wasn’t just financial—it came with deep industry knowledge, intros, and strategic insight. 🤝📈 Our MVP members helped evaluate the opportunity and delivered incredible intel. 🧠✨ Watch Here: https://lnkd.in/d5AnVx8n Listen here: https://lnkd.in/ga_TNNnZ

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Excited to partner with Clarify in their $22.5M funding led by USVP and Gradient, alongside Madrona, Recall Capital, and others. Sales teams spend most of their time updating CRMs instead of selling. Patrick Thompson, Austin Hay, and Ondrej Hrebicek built an autonomous CRM that handles all the manual work automatically. I use it all day every day. More on the future of the sales tech stack and autonomous CRM here: https://lnkd.in/gcG-YgcE

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From the beginning, we believed Lumana was building much more than a smarter surveillance tool. Lumana's platform reflects the next evolution in video intelligence — physical AI. This approach enables systems to go beyond basic detection capabilities to understanding context, infer intent, and deliver real-time insights that improve safety and operations at scale. Further, we decided to take the longer and more difficult direction of building a whole new generation and fully featured Video Management System (VMS). With the company’s $40M Series A, led by our friend Peter Wagner from Wing Venture Capital and our seed partners from SCAPITALVC, we’re doubling down on a platform that’s already proving its value in the real world. We are serving now close to ten thousands enterprise cameras in production! Founders like Sagi Ben Moshe bring a rare mix of vision and execution to the table. From our earliest conversations as an EIR at Norwest, it was clear that Lumana had the potential to reshape how organizations use video. Congratulations to the team on this well-deserved milestone. https://lnkd.in/gwHdaGPZ

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This post is absolutely true. But the problem is many VCs won’t tell you their exit time frame at the pitch meeting or even know it themselves.

What drew us to Arya Health wasn’t just the technology, but the clarity of purpose behind it. Kunal and Arunram are solving one of the hardest and least glamorous problems in healthcare: the broken labor operations that keep post-acute care running. This is a $500B+ market, nearly 10% of U.S. healthcare spend, yet most of it still depends on manual coordination. Every day, agencies are juggling thousands of nurses, last-minute shift cancellations, credential expirations, and payroll calculations across dozens of systems. The administrative burden is crushing, and it’s only getting worse as the population ages and demand for home-based care accelerates. Arya has built AI agents that act as a true digital workforce for healthcare operations - autonomously handling scheduling, onboarding, compliance tracking, and payroll. Their scheduling agent alone manages complex variables like patient needs, clinical fit, distance, and bonus pay, continuously rebalancing assignments in real time. The early traction has been remarkable. Customers whom we talked to consistently describe Arya as transformational - “what they’ve always dreamed of” and a product that will “forever change the industry.” Agencies are already seeing utilization rise from roughly 60% to over 80%, driving significant improvements in coverage, patient outcomes, and operating margins. What stands out most about Kunal and Arun is how deeply they care about the people behind these operations. They spend time in the field with schedulers, caregivers, and agency leaders - the unsung heroes who hold the healthcare system together - and they build with empathy and urgency. That care shows up in the product and in every customer relationship. At ACME Capital, we believe the most impactful AI companies will rebuild critical industries from the inside out. Nurses, home health aides, and post-acute caregivers are the backbone of our healthcare system, and often the backbone of their communities. Arya Health is giving them the modern infrastructure they deserve. Congratulations to Kunal, Arun, and the entire Arya team on your oversubscribed $18.2M Series A. We’re proud to lead this round and partner with you as you reimagine how care gets delivered across homes and communities.

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Very happy to share that we are leading Pursuit's Series A. Mike Vichich and Brandon Max are exceptional leaders. I met Mike in December 2024 and was immediately struck by his focus on building in government, one of the most important and under-innovated sectors. Big vision, strong execution, and optimism. At the time, I was between roles and doing some angel investing. That conversation made it clear I wanted to work more closely with founders like him. A year later, I get to do exactly that. Leading this round is a full-circle moment. If you're building in GovTech please consider taking a look at their fantastic product. And reach out to us at Builders VC as we love the market!

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Every #VentureStudio GP knows some portfolio bets won’t hit. That's expected - and it's one of the reasons studios are such a powerful vehicle for innovation. And while a venture's failure might be what's visible to the outsider, what keeps them up at night isn’t failure at the venture level — it’s failure at the systemic level within the studio. One bad entity design. One IP misstep. One governance gap. That’s how studio operations fall apart. We break down how to spot (and fix) these cracks before they turn into fault lines in our latest paper, "The GP Dilemma" - DM me and I'll send you a copy!

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An often overlooked truth in venture: founder health is company health. In our latest Warrior Guide, we partnered with Noah Shanok, founder and first CEO of Stitcher (acquired by SiriusXM), early StubHub exec (acquired by eBay), and Benchmark & NEA-backed entrepreneur, to share the parts of founder life we should talk about more. This guide isn’t a checklist. It’s lived experience, and it's brutal, honest, and practical. From near-burnout during a Series A raise to the daily work of recovering clarity, Noah shared strategies that go deeper than platitudes: 🫂 Building a trusted peer support circle ⏰ Creating routines that actually work in startup life 🧠 Recognizing when to ask for help (and why it’s a strength, not a weakness) If you’re leading a company and finding it harder to lead yourself some days, you’re not alone. This one’s for you! Read the full warrior guide at the link in the comments. Founders- what are the mental resilience habits you’ve built into your journey? We'd love to hear from you.

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Company building in energy is shaped by early decisions that compound over time—how capital is structured, how technical risk is absorbed, and how teams prepare for scale well before it arrives.    Much of my work with founders centers on navigating those choices as deep science becomes real businesses. The details differ across power, materials, and industrial systems, but the challenge is consistent: building companies that can operate, adapt, and grow over long horizons.  You can see that work taking shape across the Breakthrough Energy portfolio. https://lnkd.in/eXd72trE

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Two weeks ago on Swimming with Allocators, we sat down with David Clark, CIO at VenCap, to talk about what decades of venture data can teach allocators. One takeaway that stood out: discounts don’t matter as much as people think in venture secondaries. Because venture is such a power-law asset class, outcomes are driven by exposure to a few massive winners. Whether a stake is bought at a small discount, or even a premium, often matters far less than the quality of the underlying company and its upside. Great conversation on venture returns, manager selection, and the nuances of how allocators should think about secondary investments. 👇 Link in the comments.

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The Brex / Capital One $5.15Bn acquisition is a huge deal and should be celebrated. How did they do it? I've studied their culture by interviewing Henrique Dubugras (Co-founder), Michael B. Tannenbaum (ex-CFO, Employee #1), and Art L. (CBO, Employee #50). These are 10 important lessons I learned from them. Henrique and Pedro built Brex as teenagers from a house in SF to a generational fintech in 9 years. From a startup card to $100B+ in TPV. Along the way, they created a culture that has already spun out dozens of founders who have raised over $800M+. Here's what I learned on our Fintech Leaders episodes: 1. Your first 10 leadership hires matter more than your first 10 employees. Those leaders create processes and structures that outlast them. Some of Brex's first 10 employees didn't become managers, but the leaders they hired early shaped the culture. 2. Great founders get lucky with great mentors. Henrique's first investor was a payments founder who taught him the entire industry before he really understood it. The right early backer can accelerate your learning curve dramatically. 3. Build everything in-house. A major competitive advantage came from building all their software from scratch. Brex built their own issuer processor because Marqeta and Stripe Issuing were not mature when they launched. That proprietary infrastructure enabled deeper integrations than competitors could ever achieve. 4. Your best culture exists in the edges, not the nodes. Henrique used to think companies were 100% about the people. Now he believes the real value is in the processes, systems, and structures people create. Great companies can survive personnel changes because excellence lives in the connections between people. 5. If you have five priorities, you have zero. Every employee and team has a single OKR. The discipline of extreme focus brought them back to hyper growth after a period of growing pains. 6. Move at an unnaturally fast rate. When someone says they will revert next week, ask why not tomorrow. Analysis paralysis kills momentum. Brex leaders operate with urgency that feels uncomfortable to most people. 7. Listen to your customers. Brex built partnerships with Navan and Zip because 87 customers asked about Navan integration in six months. The biggest strategic moves came directly from customer requests. 8. Land and expand is crucial in enterprise. Large customers do not deploy new vendors to everyone at once. They want to try you in one use-case first. Brex restructured sales comp with longer hold periods so reps would land small and expand later. 9. Promoting from within creates loyalty. Behind every internal promotion, a manager is taking a risk on you. The easiest path is always hiring someone who has done the job before. Backing internal talent is harder but builds something lasting. 10. Dream big is not a cliche. Their audacious goal-setting culture produced a generational company in 9 years. Bravo! Link in comments ⤵️

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I’m thrilled to officially announce our $3M seed investment in Propel People, a company we built inside the 1848 Ventures studio to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the #construction industry today: the skilled #labor shortage. For small and medium-sized contractors, hiring isn't just a challenge. It's the number one threat to their growth, profitability, and safety. With 94% of contractors struggling to find qualified workers, it’s clear that traditional hiring methods aren't built for the trades. That’s why we built Propel People. It’s a mobile-first, AI-powered hiring platform designed for how construction actually works: in the field. By leveraging smart candidate ranking, instant #SMS-based screening, and a fully #bilingual interface, Propel helps contractors build great crews faster and more efficiently. I’m also thrilled to formally announce that industry veteran Dexter Bachelder is at the helm as CEO. Having worked with Dexter and the team over the last few months, we've already seen the impact of his leadership. His 25 years of experience scaling construction tech companies will be instrumental as Propel People enters this initial stage of growth. This investment reinforces our core thesis at 1848 Ventures: building AI-native companies that solve fundamental pain points for the #SMBs that form the backbone of our economy. A huge congratulations to Dexter and the entire Propel People team on this milestone. We are incredibly proud to partner with you to support the people who build our world. Read the full announcement below. #constructiontech #venturecapital #seedfunding #ai #skilledtrades #smb

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Today is the due date of California’s Fair Investment Practices' first annual demographic report, and my team at Fabric VC is proud to report on our 100% diverse-led portfolio. 🎉 We look forward to seeing other funds like ours changing the paradigm in VC, and will be calling out those whose numbers look far different than ours to start making intentional choices to create a more diverse VC system. #FIPVCC

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HealthVC x Lusha: Unlocking Smarter Fundraising and Sales Workflows We’re thrilled to announce our newest partnership: HealthVC has teamed up with Lusha to bring next-gen data and prospecting tools to founders, fund managers, and operators across our community. Lusha recently launched a powerful suite of AI-powered features that redefine how go-to-market teams research, prospect, and convert. Now those capabilities are coming to HealthVC Pro subscribers. ✨ With this partnership, you’ll be able to: Surface real-time, accurate, and compliant B2B contact data Use AI Prospecting Chat to instantly uncover new investor or customer leads Tap into CRM-triggered recommendations to stay one step ahead Turn insight into action with Sales Streaming, Lusha’s smarter, connected selling framework. But Lusha’s superpower isn’t just the AI; it’s that the AI sits on top of best-in-class data. That means every signal, every recommendation, and every lead is not just fast, it’s trustworthy. At HealthVC, we’re building more than a newsletter; we’re building the operating system for venture, and this partnership helps our members move faster, pitch smarter, and close better. Available now to all HealthVC subscribers, link in comments.

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A big milestone today for Grow Therapy, which just announced a $150M Series D led by TCV and Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with BCI and Menlo Ventures joining Sequoia, Transformation Capital, and SignalFire. When we led Grow’s Series A in 2021, it was rooted in a belief that mental health access in the U.S. isn’t hindered by supply, it’s a systems problem. To win, Grow needed to be deeply integrated into the healthcare ecosystem, not operating as a point solution. In just 5 years, more than 2 million people have used Grow, with over 10 million therapy and medication management visits delivered on the platform. What stands out is the infrastructure the team has built: Grow now partners with 125+ health insurers, including Medicare and Medicaid across most states, reaching 220 million covered lives. At the same time, tools like its clinically-guided AI notetaker are reducing provider documentation time by nearly 70%, helping clinicians focus more on care. This is what durable healthtech looks like: deep payer integrations, measurable outcomes, and technology embedded directly into existing healthcare workflows. Excited to continue partnering with Jake Cooper, Manoj Kanagaraj, MD, Alan Ni, and the entire Grow team as they build trusted mental health infrastructure for insurers, employers, health systems, and most importantly, patients.

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Thrilled to share the launch of Criticality, a $65M fund built to back founders solving hard, high-leverage problems at the intersection of technical complexity and real-world urgency. Criticality builds on the foundation we’ve laid at Antler - applying our conviction-driven approach to companies at Seed & Series A. The fund is sector-flexible but applies a deep tech lens to each opportunity, targeting non-obvious, high-leverage problems from the earliest stages of company formation. Grateful to the New Mexico State Investment Council for their support in anchoring Criticality. More to come soon from Cash Allred & I.

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