DigitalDx Ventures is a majority woman-owned impact fund investing in early-stage health technology companies which deliver innovative solutions using artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose illness earlier and address medical conditions with solutions collectively affecting over two billion lives worldwide. They aim to bridge the gender gap in venture capital by breaking down barriers for women and minorities. They are committed to investing in companies with diverse management teams that address diseases that disproportionately affect women and minorities. DDx focuses on positively impacting women's health with diagnostics for conditions that include breast cancer, mental health, kidney health, maternal health, multi-cancer screening, and brain health. DDx is differentiated from other funds by its commitment to promote diversity and equity inside and outside the Fund. Currently less than 2% of funds are managed by women, and female founders received only 2% of the funding in 2021. Without a more sustainable approach to bring more women and minorities into the venture capital ecosystem, our numbers will only decrease in this privileged career with extremely high barriers to entry.

https://www.digitaldxventures.com/fellows.html

• International

• Youth
• Women
• People with disabilities
• The unemployed
• The poor
• Remote and rural communities
• Adolescent
• Adult
• Pregnant women

The Project: At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, DDx Founder Michele Colucci felt compelled to connect young graduate students from around the world to create a pipeline for venture capital education and mentoring. She started the DigitalDx Fellowship Program - today over 100 students – with the goal to train and educate the next generation of women and minority entrepreneurs worldwide. This cohort is comprised of 50% women and 66% minorities who come together in a virtual learning environment to think critically, problem-solve and provide innovative points of view. Empowering them to confidently move forward to prestigious graduate programs or careers in finance, healthcare, or venture capital sectors. We wish to expand this program bringing more students into this rarefied ecosystem and impact population health.

We are starting our 3rd year of the Fellowship - and we intend to continue as long as we can! We also continue to grow in the number of fellows, the number of team leaders, the number of teachers and the offerings we teach. Fellowships are for a semester. Then the fellows are given teh option of becoming a leader for the next fellowship. Then post fellowship they join the fellowship community where fellows working in various jobs sit on panels and counsel younger fellows on career opportunities and share their experiences working in their jobs so everyone can figure out if a particular position is right for them. Jobs that our fellows have gone into are in healthcare, venture funds, private equity, research labs, academia, startups, and more. Fellows have found this peer to peer learning extremely valuable.

We conduct the fellowship over Zoom; all materials are delivered virtually; we encourage students to investigate the sustainability metrics of the portfolio companies and challenge our fund to do the same. We provide access to the very coveted careers in venture capital that anyone outside of Silicon Valley or the most wealthy cities in the world are able to obtain. We give our Fellows training and a glimpse into what it's like to invest millions of dollars into game changing healthcare technology innovation and then support them through their journey. The fellows form one semester then become the leaders of the next. So there is a step up in responsibility for those who want to take that increased role. Then after the fellowship the fellows hold fellow to fellow panels to help each other get a foothold into jobs in this area. We all know that knowing someone inside helps an applicant tremendously. Fellows on the panel also counsel younger fellows on what it's like to be in their role. The roles range from healthcare companies to investment firms to academia to startups to research centers. It's an extremely valuable model which has sustained itself now for the first two years organically and needs to grow! As a fund, we also invest in at home solutions so people don't have to drive to medical facilities and can get their testing done at home or virtually resulting in a decrease of the carbon footprint.

Our program promotes WSIS values in our community by expanding access to information, education, peer to peer learning and access to high paying jobs. It promotes an inclusive gender and diverse framework where people traditionally unable to access the educational steps to obtain positions in venture capital investing can get that required training and access. It cuts through problem of access for underrepresented communities financially, ethnically and gender based. It promotes a greater world community of interested students who ban together to collectively source, diligence, and invest in game changing healthcare companies with a diverse team and a large market opportunity. It promotes peer to peer learning and collaboration to the end goal which is supporting companies that can collectively affect the healthcare of over 2 billion lives. First, we invest at the intersection of AI and medicine. So all of our work, research, review of companies, is focused on the Ai and machine learning elements of diagnostic companies. We work extensively with students to teach how to review and validate the Ai/ML elements of the companies applying to us for funding. Second, the fellows and I have developed our own AI/ML model to triage incoming startups with a 72 data point model. This helps the fellows learn what is important when reviewing companies and further enables them to get hands on experience aggregating the data, cleansing it, validating it, running it through the model, tweaking the model, creating user interfaces for the company data intake, viewer dashboard, and creating smooth user experiences. So we not only focus on analyzing external Ai models but we have also created our own internally which we continue to refine and iterate with each new fellowship cohort.