Jessica Karr, Founder and Managing Partner at Coyote Ventures, shares how she backs AI-driven startups focused on improving health access, outcomes, and equity. Drawing from her six years at Impossible Foods, where she helped build a product from prototype to global phenomenon, Jessica explains how she brings a product innovator's lens to healthcare's most overlooked problems: women's health, racial disparities, rural access, and aging care. Jessica demonstrates why solving for equity isn't just morally right; it's economically smart through better outcomes and cost savings. She also discusses how her Health Equity Innovator Summit has become the convergence point where founders, health systems, payers, and policymakers forge the partnerships that turn healthcare's biggest gaps into its biggest opportunities.

In this episode, you'll learn:

[02:40] Jessica’s journey from Texas to San Francisco and her early work in R&D at Impossible Foods

[04:55] The idea behind plant based meat and how innovation can reshape consumer behavior

[07:30] Why Jessica started Coyote Ventures and how the firm focuses on overlooked areas of healthcare

[10:35] How AI driven digital health platforms can improve patient outcomes between doctor visits

[13:15] What Coyote Ventures looks for when evaluating seed and pre seed healthcare startups

[18:55] How AI is changing healthcare products and operations

[22:35] Advice for founders building healthcare startups in a complex and relationship driven system

[28:45] The Health Equity Innovator Summit

The nonprofit organization Jessica is passionate about: Reproductive Freedom for All

About Jessica Karr

Jessica Karr is the Founder and Managing Partner of Coyote Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm focused on improving healthcare access and outcomes. She previously worked in research and development at Impossible Foods, where she helped develop early prototypes of the company’s plant based meat products and contributed to patents. After earning her MBA and working closely with startups, Jessica launched Coyote Ventures to back founders building innovative healthcare solutions, especially in areas that have historically been underserved.

About Coyote Ventures

Coyote Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm investing in digital health and healthcare technology companies that improve access, outcomes, and equity in healthcare. The firm focuses on areas such as women’s health, mental health, caregiving, aging, and other underserved segments of the healthcare system. Coyote Ventures invests in AI driven platforms and digital health solutions that help patients, healthcare providers, and payers deliver better care at scale. Portfolio companies include Alvee, Betterleave, Flex, Gabbi, Hera Biotech, Magnolia, Malama Health, Maude among others.

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