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How One Founder Raised $5M to Help Women Detect Breast Cancer Earlier · StartUp Health NOW Podcast

• 0:00
  The number one recommendation for fundraising is run a process outside of tenacity.
• 0:04
  Run a process, and that means you have built target lists of who are your, you know, top A investors, B invest-investors, C, D, ranking, and, like, who are the most important and that get you most excited and would bring the most value.
• 0:19
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Startup Health Now, the podcast where we celebrate the entrepreneurs and innovators who are transforming health. I'm your host, Logan Plaster.
• 0:30
  So the idea behind this show is that all around the world, there are these amazing entrepreneurs who are dead set on improving a piece of the healthcare system.
• 0:39
  Typically, they've experienced a crack in that system personally and are out to build the product they wish they'd had.
• 0:45
  Sometimes these are a couple co-founders sitting at a kitchen table or a small team building their first product.
• 0:51
  Thousands of these entrepreneurs are on their own quiet but amazing health moonshot journeys, doing the work that could, if successful at scale, improve the lives of millions of people.
• 1:02
  We're here to highlight that work because, frankly, we think it deserves a wider audience, and because sharing health moonshot progress actually helps build the momentum needed to succeed.
• 1:13
  Today, we go to Portland, Oregon to get the story of a founder helping women assess their risk of breast cancer. I'll let her introduce herself. I'm Caitlin Christine. I'm the CEO and founder at Gabby.
• 1:24
  Gabby is a revolutionary breast cancer risk assessment and early detection solution, delivering immediate and accurate results for women of all ages and all ethnicities without the dependence on a medical professional.
• 1:38
  I wanted to sit down with Caitlin Christine for the podcast because she successfully raised more than four million dollars in 2022 at a time when many other young startups were struggling to raise.
• 1:49
  Now, we stress with our startups that raising capital is just one small piece of the health moonshot journey, but there's no denying that it gives rocket fuel to a great idea. So we wanted to hear how she did it.
• 2:01
  What were the strategies and mindsets that helped her grow from a passionate solopreneur to building her first executive team and, and a scalable product?
• 2:10
  And what lessons could she share with founders who find themselves facing a similar challenge? Hope you enjoy the conversation.
• 2:18
  [upbeat music] We're gonna get into the n- nitty-gritty of s- uh, some issues around fundraising. That's the point of our conversation right now, but I wanna make sure we start at that macro health moonshot level.
• 2:29
  So, uh, help us understand what you're trying to do with Gabby, uh, and really how you're trying to transform health. Okay. Um, I love talking about this.
• 2:39
  Our mission is to make all late-stage breast cancer obsolete by ensuring that every woman knows her risks and has access to early detection.
• 2:48
  So with Gabby, for the first time ever, women can understand their risks, understand what they need to do about their risks, and be given recommendations that enable that proactive action so that they can get to an early detection.
• 3:02
  And where do you stand right now with the product? Oh, yeah. So very exciting. Um, uh, we've done multiple validation studies.
• 3:11
  We've launched multiple MVPs and pilots, and we are officially launching, uh, V1 of the product next week with our first paying enterprise customer. Next week. How does that feel? Next week. Um, a little bit unreal.
• 3:26
  Yeah. And a little bit, like, finally. [chuckles] Yeah. Like it, like it came upon you fast and slow at the same time? Yes, exactly. Very nice. Uh, okay.
• 3:36
  So, uh, w- we're here to talk about the fact that you raised a round of funding, which is definitely not as important as what you're doing to help women with their health, and yet in the world of healthcare startups, you have to get the, the, the rocket fuel that's gonna allow you to reach these, these great goals.
• 3:51
  And so funding is part of the equation, and there are, uh, for every company like yours that's raised a few million dollars and, and really started, there's a thousand that are champing at the bit and thinking about, "How do I get the funding that I need?"
• 4:03
  So tell me, uh, tell me about your fundraises over the last year or two, how much you've raised and when it happened. Sure.
• 4:11
  So we've raised two rounds of funding, uh, totaling, um, a little over five million dollars, so a pre-seed and a seed round, most recently the seed, obviously, uh, that closed in June of 2022.
• 4:26
  And how do you feel generally about the job of being the chief fundraiser for your company? How do I feel about that generally? Um, well,
• 4:38
  I think I'm good at it, but there's nothing more that has made me question [chuckles] whether or not I'm good at it, so I think that's normal. Um, it's, it's a love-hate. I love pitching. I love selling the vision.
• 4:52
  I love meeting new people. Um, on the other end, it's so stressful, so exhausting, and it really makes you question you, your abilities, and how you're doing things.
• 5:03
  Um, I do, however, know and believe that chief fundraising officer is a necessary evil, and it's one of my responsibilities. Yeah.
• 5:14
  Now, part of the reason why we're having this conversation is that you raised funds during a very difficult period.
• 5:20
  Uh, the market really started to cool off, uh, in 2022, and we, and we just wrote about how overall it was half of the funding that we saw in 2021, so definitely a, a tighter, cooler market.
• 5:33
  And so the fact that you were able to, you know, finish a round and, and close it out is, is more significant this year, I think, than ever. So I wanna get into how you did it and what worked about it.
• 5:45
  Um, how difficult was it for you to raise this five million dollars on a scale of one to 10?
• 5:51
  One being investors beating down your door and begging you to take their money, and 10 being, uh, you know, a piece of you died trying to get this done. Um, hmm.A seven All right. Solid seven.
• 6:10
  All right. Te- tell me about that. So, uh, in, in other words, it was not impossible.
• 6:15
  Uh, so that, that tells me that something really went right, and I guess my follow-up question there is how much of it was this was an idea whose time had come, and so the doors opened, and how much of it was you made this happen and had to push and do everything right to make it, to make it land?
• 6:36
  I think it would depend who you would ask. So if you're asking me, um- Which I am... uh-huh, I would say, one, that it was timing.
• 6:44
  But I think if you were to ask my partner, my best friends, other employees, other advisors, investors, they would say number two. Okay. Okay. Uh, what... Tell me more about that.
• 6:56
  So, so you, so you feel like this, the, the time has come, and you feel like, um, so, you know, so y- y- you're being understandably modest.
• 7:05
  You feel like this is, uh, the right time for this product, but the answer is both. It had to be the right time- The answer is both. You're right. Yeah. At the end of the day, the answer is both. Yeah. And I think...
• 7:15
  I- is it fair to say that, like, the audience for this podcast is probably either someone who has raised once before or hasn't raised before? Yes, early stage, for sure. Okay. Early stage.
• 7:26
  Because I think what's, number one, just as a preface before I get into any feedback or, like, maybe words of wisdoms or just about my experience, is that knowing whether or not your company is
• 7:42
  venture scalable, venture investable is number one, and before I even raised the pre-seed, which Startup Health participated in, I went out to raise when I wasn't ready, and at that point I wasn't sure that it was venture investable, and I wasn't able to successfully raise money.
• 8:02
  So I think for those who have never raised before, really, really get clear and ask yourself the hard questions on is this a venture backable company. Yeah. And then if the answer is yes, um,
• 8:18
  especially f- for both rounds, I, I think my misconception around raising the seed was that it was going to be easier. Okay. And it was easier in some ways, and it was harder in others. Um,
• 8:32
  and the, the number one thing I would say, again, assuming you've determined that your company is venture backable, the number one thing is tenacity. Um- How did you figure out that your company was venture backable?
• 8:47
  Uh, that's a good question. Uh, it took a long time. It... I, I mean, number one, asking questions, talking to so many people, um, doing research.
• 8:58
  I mean, it, it's really gathering all these different data points and coming up with a hypothesis and then pressure testing the hypothesis and until you get to a point where over and over again, the answer is, "Yes, this is venture backable.
• 9:11
  Yes, this is venture backable." And, you know, the way to... I- is, is it something that's scalable and can be done quickly with urgency and, and fills a need? That's probably number one, is, is there a problem?
• 9:25
  Can you solve it, and is it scalable? Yeah. Yeah. So how long have you been at this journey? Um, so I went full time on Gabby January twenty twenty. Okay.
• 9:39
  And then January twenty twenty-one is when I, uh, raised first, uh, capital for the pre-seed. Got it. So about three years ago.
• 9:48
  So, so what advice would you give to yourself, your three year younger self, about this raise, about this process? Uh, double it. Double it? Double the time it's going to take, double the energy it's going to take. Mm.
• 10:05
  Double the people you're gonna need to talk to, double the amount you should raise, double everything. [laughs] At what point did you realize that, and were you able to adjust? Um,
• 10:21
  I think that goes back to my misconception about raising the seed, was that it would be easier, it would be quicker, it would be faster, and although there were people knocking on our doors to invest, you still have to go through the whole process, and it's this dance.
• 10:34
  It really is this dance. No matter how much we want to admit, whether it... in- investor's admitting or founder's admitting, there's a game to it. And, um, and so as a founders,
• 10:49
  you need to know that it's a game, and, um, and you need to be prepared. Just like when you are an athlete on a team,
• 11:00
  you do not step out onto that court or that field without putting in hundreds, thousands of hours in preparation. And, um, I would say that is one of the greatest learnings from both rounds, is that
• 11:17
  you need to be real prepared. Yeah. And, um, and there's a lot that goes into the prep for fundraising. Yeah. And you need all your I's dotted and T's crossed. Let's get into some of that.
• 11:30
  Let's ta- talk about some of the technical things that, that- Sure... help, helped you succeed. We can break them down into some areas like the pitch, the deck, kind of outreach to investors.
• 11:40
  Uh, you said that you actually love pitching the company, and not every founder does. So maybe you can give some advice for what makes a really effective, successful pitch. Yeah.
• 11:52
  Um, it's funny, we were just talking about this with, um, a, a recent hire on the team, a data scientist, which if you've ever spoken with a data scientist or read anything they've written, they use lots of words.
• 12:03
  And, um, uh, and I was pulling up the deck from the seed to show her as an example of this is what-You want to get to and I pulled it up and was like, actually, I'm not going to show you that.
• 12:17
  I think it looks really bad because now I've progressed so much more even that I look at something that I did six, nine months ago and think that it's too wordy. It's not built out enough.
• 12:29
  So in terms of deck and pitching, the number one recommendation for fundraising is run a process outside of Tenacity. Run a process.
• 12:39
  And that means you have built target lists of who are your, you know, top A investors, B investors, C, D, ranking in like who are the most important and that get you most excited and will bring the most value.
• 12:53
  You have built out your deck. You have pitched to friends and family and received feedback and you have edited it multiple times. And you have worked on what your follow-up emails are going to be.
• 13:06
  You've prepared your data room so that when you kick off your fundraising process, you start with the D investors. And for about two weeks, you're pitching to the D investors and you're taking notes.
• 13:18
  And at the end of each week, you're taking all the notes that were repeated over and over again. So not everyone's feedback, but the ones that kept coming up.
• 13:25
  And you now go back to your deck, you edit them, you go back to your pitch, you edit them so that come week three or four, you're now going to the C level investors and you've improved.
• 13:36
  And you do the same thing all the way until by the time you get to the A, you are on your game. Yeah. Was there anything that shifted dramatically through that process? Or was it marginal changes, tweaks here and there?
• 13:52
  Yeah, it wasn't anything huge. Um, and it will never, at least in my experience, it's never something really huge. Um, they're all a bunch of small tweaks. And more than anything,
• 14:05
  it's less about the deck and the information in the deck, and it's more about how you talk about it and how you answer and field questions or objections.
• 14:17
  And so that's what I think was, it was tightening up fielding answers or questions and objections. What kind of feedback surprised you? Well, I mean, there's always the,
• 14:31
  there's no market for this and what I would qualify as like bullshit responses, which in my mind, that's, you know, I think something to keep in mind is that you're also vetting investors while you're pitching.
• 14:42
  And so as soon as someone says that, like not, I'm not interested in pursuing a conversation. Um, so I think that's another important thing to keep in mind.
• 14:52
  Now I will say, uh, for the pre-seed round, uh, there was an investor that said they thought this space was tapped and there wasn't any room. And it was another investor who had introduced me to this person.
• 15:05
  And I was, I believed that they believed they would be a good value add. So I pursued to change their mind and I did, and they doubled down in fact. Um, so that was a unique instance.
• 15:19
  You know, much has been written about how male-dominated venture capital is, and this is a women's health company.
• 15:25
  And I wonder what your thoughts are on any ways you had to shift your presentation or you felt like you needed to shift when presenting to men versus women. Yeah. Um, what I have found is that the more traction we get
• 15:41
  and, you know, the, the more, um, incredible people you have on your cap table name-dropping essentially, whether it's right or wrong, it, it gives you more credibility. Sure. Um, right. And male or female, truly.
• 15:57
  Um, and so I have less of the, what I would say, like bullshit questions or bullshit responses to pitching or Gabby or me than I did from the pre-seed. Absolutely.
• 16:11
  Um, what in, in benefit of male investors, I will say I equally have had incredible experiences with male investors who either want to seek to understand and ask great questions, not in an accusatory or attacking way, or, and more often it's actually the second one, or have had a personal experience related with breast cancer from their wife or their daughter or sister or mother or grandmother, and they get it almost instantly, just like any woman does.
• 16:46
  Yeah. You know, A, it's a good segue for this concept, but the underlying sort of, um, understanding of this whole conversation is how difficult and even frustrating fundraising can be.
• 17:00
  And yet I wonder if there were any really sweet moments during all of this. You just said, you know, sharing that, you know, intimate story of, of, you know, hey, I dealt with this.
• 17:11
  What were some highlights of the experience? Yes, absolutely. Um, and I would say some of those, uh, highlights wou- would be just that.
• 17:22
  Um, male investors specifically who I, I wou- I was surprised that, uh, they had an experience and it was like a, a beautiful moment. I'm trying to think some other really great ones.
• 17:39
  An- another fabulous one actually that was really special was I had just done a big revision of my deck, and I had... It was at the beginning of raising the seed again.
• 17:51
  So I had, had gone through friends and family and then, um, had started pitching to D, started pitching to C, and I was, um, around B, and I was expecting more success, if you will, than I was getting.
• 18:06
  And so I did a big overhaul of my deck because my boyfriend said that I was underselling Gabby and underselling myself. So he helped me, and then a couple other female founders helped me reposition it.
• 18:18
  And it was one night we were entertaining for some of our friends, and, you know, he, he mentioned it, and they asked me to pitch them.I pitched them.
• 18:29
  He happens to be a bestselling author, he's a rocket scientist, super smart. And as he's leaving that night from my home, he said, "Hey, would you be willing to send me your deck?"
• 18:41
  Long story short, he and his wife invested, and it was a beautiful moment- Mm... that was totally unexpected that came from collaboration and, and friendship. Yeah. Yeah, I love it.
• 18:55
  When you finally closed the, uh, was it the, the four million dollar round, the, the second tranche of, of the raise, um, did your team pause and celebrate, or was it just on to the next mission? That's a good question.
• 19:09
  Um, that's something I need to work on as an individual and as a leader. Um- You're not the first one to tell me that.
• 19:16
  [laughs] Um, typically my friends around me are really good at making me, like, slow down and do that. Um, I will say we were still-- we were only two people full-time, and by two people I mean me and one other person.
• 19:30
  Wow. [laughs] So, so I mean, there was a little celebration, but definitely- Yeah... when we go out to raise whatever the next round of funding will be, it'll look different because now we're seven people full-time.
• 19:43
  Yeah. Uh, yeah. What was, what was that, what was that process like? I mean, uh, emotionally as much as anything, uh, growing from two to seven, it's a big deal. It is. It is a big deal.
• 19:54
  It, um, we look very different than we did- Yeah... a year ago, let alone six months ago. It's very exciting. It's amazing the things that change, the things that you think will come off your plate that don't. Yeah.
• 20:11
  The things that do. Um, the way you get to learn from other people.
• 20:18
  It also really calls out the holes in everything [chuckles] in terms of, "Oh, wow, um, my lack of organization with documents now is a problem for the whole [laughs] company, all seven people. We need to solve this."
• 20:33
  Yeah. Who, uh, who was your first hire? Uh, what were you most excited to do with the funds that you raised? Hmm. Those could be two separate questions, I suppose. Yeah.
• 20:42
  The first hire, um, who was the, um, the second person when we closed the seed round, uh, Ashmita. She was my first hire, a biomedical data scientist. And then the subsequent hires were, um, uh,
• 21:01
  product manager, clinical operations manager, and full stack designer. Got it. Got it. Shortly followed by operations. Yeah.
• 21:11
  Uh, you've covered some of your advice, but sort of thinking, uh, some more about the founder who's right in the throes of their first raise right now, anything else that you learned that you'd wanna pass on to them?
• 21:23
  And I know I told you this before we started talking, um, I thought about it and really, I mean, outside of, like, the tactical things like run a process, um, the number one really is just be tenacious. Don't give up.
• 21:38
  It's really, really hard. It's just, no matter what, it's really, really hard. Yeah. But if you harness that tenacity, that persistence, that discipline, it'll pay off. Yeah.
• 21:52
  Obviously as the founder, you know, when there's, there's news headlines about raising millions of dollars, you get a lot of accolades, and yet we all know that we stand on the shoulders of, of a lot of supportive people.
• 22:03
  So, uh, who would you wanna shout out, whether it's a supportive funder who really saw something in the company, or someone on the team who kind of really helped make this a reality with you? Oh my gosh, um, so many.
• 22:16
  Um, I mean, so Ashmita Rajendran, who was my first hire. Um, my best friend, Claire Coder, who is also an investor, and my close girlfriends and other female founders, um, in the women's health space.
• 22:33
  Uh, Mary Grove, who is the-- who was the lead for the last round. Um, David Kidder, who has invested in both rounds and has just been an incredible friend as well as coach and investor.
• 22:50
  Um, those are, those are the people who come top of mind immediately. Very nice. Um, I've heard it said that, you know, one of the important things about raising is to be thinking about it before you need to do it. Yeah.
• 23:03
  Do you fi- do you find yourself, uh, in a lull between [chuckles] fundraisers, or is your mind kind of already i- in that mode partially for the next time?
• 23:14
  So I'll never forget, I had just closed the pre-seed round, the one that Startup Health participated in, and, like, that day it closes and my best friend, Claire, calls and she goes, "Okay, so when are you gonna raise your seed?"
• 23:26
  And I was like, "What? No. Can't I just have, like, an hour?" Yeah. And, um, and I tell that story because it, it, it's the reality. It's true. Yeah.
• 23:38
  Um, you, you do need to immediately think about, okay, what is the timeline here? And you should have already thought about, like, where is this money going to get me?
• 23:47
  But thinking about, okay, how much time do I get to take a breather? And then at what point will I need to start planning to raise, and at what point will I need the funds? Um, so I mean,
• 24:00
  one of the other things that I learned after fundraising the first time was between the pre-seed and the seed, I didn't really take a break.
• 24:09
  And you kind of called this out that an, you know, an article comes out about raising money and, and then all of a sudden you have all this inbound, and it happens no matter what.
• 24:20
  The mistake I made the first time was I just, I took it all. Like, "Yes, I'll have a meeting. Yes, let's talk to you," even though I'm not inter- I'm not raising and- Yeah...
• 24:29
  um, so that by the time it was time to raise the seed, I didn't feel like I had a break at all. Mm. And I think it's really important to have that break from fundraising.
• 24:37
  So the biggest difference I made from the seed to whatever our next round will be is that I, I wrote a response to every investor that came inbound and said, "Thank you so much. So excited that you're excited.
• 24:51
  I am not fundraising. You're welcome to schedule time on my calendar in six months." [chuckles] Yeah.
• 24:56
  And, um, and it wa- it was a ga- it was a game changer just so I could have that reprieve and not have to worry about it. Um, so that's what I did this time.
• 25:07
  But I've al- we've already thought about when we would have to raise the next round, when that will be, you know, who we will be targeting, et cetera. It's, it's really important to, to figure that out. Yeah.
• 25:18
  Caitlin, thank you so much for taking the time with me.
• 25:20
  I, I love that I've gotten to watch your story unfold since joining Startup Health, and even more, I just, uh, appreciate your dedication to helping women, uh, have earlier detection of breast cancer, and I just, I can't wait to see how your, your team grows and your mission continues to scale.
• 25:39
  Thank you so much, Logan. My pleasure. All right. Wish you all the best. Be well. [upbeat music] Thanks for listening to "Startup Health Now."
• 25:51
  Startup Health invests in health transformers around the world who are dedicated to achieving audacious health moonshots.
• 25:57
  If you wanna learn how you can join this community of entrepreneurs, or if you wanna connect with one of our four hundred and fifty companies, go to startuphealth.com.
• 26:05
  If you'd like to learn how you can invest in our Health Moonshot Impact Fund, go to healthmoonshots.com. Thanks for listening to "Startup Health Now." We'll be back again with another episode next week. [upbeat music]