Esther and Anne Wojcicki join new healthcare accelerator, fund

Source: TechCrunch

Overview

Mary Minno, an investor and former product manager at Google, announced the launch of an early‑stage startup accelerator program called Treehub and an early‑stage venture firm called AI Health Fund. Both initiatives aim to back startups working at the intersection of healthcare and AI. The AI Health Fund serves as the venture arm of the Treehub residency, where founders apply to incubate their ideas.

Treehub Residency Program

• Duration: Six months
  • First 12 weeks: Focus on finding product‑market fit.
  • Last 12 weeks: Guidance on company direction, including fundraising, joining traditional accelerators, or deploying across hospital systems.

Minno conceived the residency after a personal experience with a family member’s acute leukemia diagnosis, which highlighted challenges in accessing specialists, long wait times, and outdated policies and technology. She believes more startups are needed to challenge the status quo in healthcare.

Inspiration and Collaboration

Minno turned to her former high‑school journalism teacher, Esther Wojcicki, to help design the program. Together they discussed how academics—often rich in research—struggle to launch startup ideas because they “don’t really know how to tell a good story” to venture investors and lack commercialization expertise. The program aims to pair operators with academic‑focused founders, teaching them the art of building a business.

AI Health Fund

• Purpose: Provide early‑stage checks ranging from $50,000 to $150,000 to companies emerging from academic circles.
• Target Size: Raise $10 million; first close was $1.5 million (including $500,000 from family and friends and a $1 million check from Tim Draper).
• Structure: Set up as a separate vehicle to support founders who may not go through the Treehub program or who are second/third‑time founders.

Team

• Operating Partner: Anne Wojcicki
• Founding Adviser: Esther Wojcicki
• Stanford Contributors:
  • Roxana Daneshjou – Assistant Professor of Biomedical Data Science & Dermatology, Stanford Medicine
  • Alexander Ioannidis – Assistant Professor of Biomedical Data Science & Genetics, Stanford
• Additional Partner: Derek Minno (President of Point Capital, Mary Minno’s husband)

Portfolio

The AI Health Fund aims to back at least 60 companies in its first iteration. It has already invested in 12 companies from the Treehub program, including:

• Clair Health – a women’s hormone tracker (also participated in an a16z speedrun)
• Dennis Walls’ new venture focused on pediatric autism

Program Philosophy and Operations

• Early‑Stage Focus: The residency works with founders before a formal company exists.
• Co‑Founder‑Like Support: In many cases, the team introduces founders to lawyers for incorporation, effectively acting as a co‑founder.
• Strategic Guidance: Emphasis on problem‑solving skills and strategic planning rather than a traditional accelerator model.
• No Demo Day: Companies mature at different rates, so a unified demo day is not held.

Goals and Vision

• Iterative Learning: Assess the first residency cycle to determine which aspects can be scaled and which should remain small.
• Success Metric: Aim to make every company they work with successful, with a long‑term vision to 10x the program’s impact.
• Future Expansion: After refining the model through multiple cycles, the plan is to expand the residency across the country.