#Twenty25 - Funding the future of health tech - Part 20/20 Interview with Akshata Agarwal, Frog Capital.

Ian Coyne: Great to have you as part of the series Akshata. Think about the discussion in three horizons: 2025 investment in health tech, beyond 2025 trends, and if you had a magic wand, what would you change in health tech – let’s start with 2025.

Akshata Agarwal: The widespread adoption of wearables, better integration of EHRs [electronic health records], and overall improvements in digitization—largely driven by the startup revolution—have contributed to the creation of valuable data sets that were previously underrepresented. For example, Clue with over 10 million women subscribers, may have the largest data set available on women’s reproductive health. The convergence of data and AI represents one of the greatest untapped potentials in healthcare, and several applications in this space particularly excite me.

Firstly, improving clinical outcomes at lower costs through better data structuring in pharma, companies like LynxCare use AI to analyze both structured and unstructured data, unlocking real-world evidence (RWE) to enhance clinical outcomes. Similarly, Ikerian focuses on data derived from medical images, while Iktos is revolutionizing drug development processes.

I’m also excited about personalized and outcome-based medicine. Digital therapeutics (DTx) like Caspar and Cureety, along with software as medical devices (SaMDs) such as Skin Analytics, are enabling personalized diagnostics at scale, paving the way for more tailored treatments and better patient outcomes.

Finally, and I know others have commented on this, healthy aging. Companies in this space use data and AI to improve lifespan based on individual's unique biology. For example, One (OneApp.bio) offers personalized protocols for improving aging and adapts these protocols based on individual progress.

Ian: Interesting, that’s also linked to a topic I know you are interested in – the digitization of hospitals?

Akshata: Hospitals are extremely complex organizations with high stake outcomes and must follow several safety and regulatory protocols. I was surprised to learn that something seemingly simple like a hospital gown is subject to a multitude of protocols like materials, number of stitches, the number of washes, etc. Operations in hospitals are under digitized, and coordination even today happens on WhatsApp’s leading to lags and missed information. Companies like MediShout are focusing on solving this for the surgery department. There is a strong commercial incentive for the hospital to do so as surgery departments are profit drivers for hospitals. For example, something as minor as a malfunctioning light bulb in an operating theatre can lead to a cancelled procedure, causing significant disruptions and financial losses.

Ian: And what about the healthy aging topic?

Akshata: Healthy aging is another exciting area. Knowing your bio age is becoming common, and companies like One (oneApp.Bio) who are coming out of beta can provide personalized protocols to improve it. This includes diet, exercise, and vitamins tailored to the individual.

As tech adoption curves shorten, we can expect rapid growth in this sector. Personalized health protocols will become more mainstream, helping individuals improve their health, based on their unique biology.

Ian: Beyond 2025, what areas do you think will be transformative?

Akshata: I think Data and AI will continue to be big themes disrupting biotech, medication and diagnosis. Early cancer detection by companies like Cyted Health is just the beginning. Neuralink's work on brain connectivity is another example of groundbreaking science. These innovations will address significant health challenges and improve patient outcomes.

Ian: If you had a magic wand, what would you change to accelerate health tech adoption?

Akshata: Aligning incentives to accelerate adoption is key. For example, in France, digital therapeutics get reimbursed, and hospitals also receive a per-patient reimbursement. This aligns incentives and helps startups scale faster by incentivizing the system – and these systems are often facing chronic under-funding. A little more tactically, making it easier to do pilots and creating sandboxes for testing would also help scale ups prove their data, agents and software.

Not an uncommon theme I am sure you are hearing when startups work with health systems, or pharma for that matter, bureaucracy and complex decision-making processes often delay pilots, so simplifying these processes would significantly reduce scaling time. Additionally, creating government-funded institutions where startups can test their products and access key stakeholders would foster innovation.

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Akshata Agarwal, Investor at Frog Capital

Akshata is an investor at Frog Capital focused on health tech and climate tech.

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