[music]
Um, well, thanks for coming on. Uh, I
appreciate it. Uh, did some research on
yourself, managing partner at Breadand
Butter Ventures, based out of
Minneapolis, Minnesota. Um, tell me a
little bit about yourself. uh your 15
years inside Google and how you got
started with bread and butter.
>> Well, Johan, thanks for having me on the
show. I'm a big big fan of your work and
appreciate the the opportunity to chat
and yes, as uh as you said. So, so my
name is Mary Grove. I am managing
partner at Bread and Butter Ventures and
just thrilled to be, you know, working
in pursuit of of building uh a venture
capital firm from the Midwest to support
and invest in founders nationally in a
few key sectors. And so the story of of
bread and butter and the story of how I
came to the work just to back up a bit.
So my background is has always been in
in tech and kind of early stage
investing. I was really lucky to grow up
in a a scrappy immigrant entrepreneur
family where my parents both immigrated
separately from Thailand to the US in
search of economic opportunity and a
chance to build for the family they
would go on to create and the family
that they were providing for back home.
[snorts] And it was inspirational to
grow up in this environment. My parents
both had backgrounds in healthcare as
well. And my mom was an operating room
nurse for for 25 years. My dad ran a
clinic and um growing up in that
environment too informed a lot of the
work that I get to do today. So fast
forward, I went to college, I studied at
at Stanford and you know was very
serendipitously in the backyard of of
tech in Silicon Valley at a really
interesting time and a pivotal moment.
So, I was lucky to get to join Google
right out of school and thought I would
go for one year on the way to law
school, but that ballooned into um just
shy of 15 years when I when I left
>> and it was a a great adventure. So,
really got to work on a few things from
the IPO deal team when the company went
public in 2004 and then worked in a team
called new business development helping
incubate new product partnerships and
work on emerging market expansion for
about seven years.
and then got to help build what is
called today the Google for startups
organization which is looking at how
does Google leverage its time its talent
its technology financial resources to
really fuel the next generation of of
Google's to be built launch and grow so
that was chapter one and and really
where I grew my deep love for working
with very early stage companies number
one and number two this concept that we
have an opportunity to democratize
access to capital in more places and
look at emerging markets whether that's
across the United States or across the
world and that has been I'd say a
throughine of of the work. I love that
perspective because an emerging market
could be within nationally within
borders of a certain country with a
country as big as the US. You could
consider a state like Minnesota emerging
market. Um, right. And you don't really
have to leave the borders of the
country.
>> Emerging in in so many senses of the
word, right? There's there's so much
opportunity. You're absolutely right.
And a lot of when I was at Google, a lot
of my work was in emerging markets
internationally, right? In the Middle
East. Um I spent a lot of time there for
example, which was was such a highlight.
But in the US, you're right. And if you
talk about the democratization of access
to capital, for example, still today,
75% of venture capital dollars from a
funding perspective still go to three
markets. Silicon Valley, New York, and
Boston. So if you look at every other
ecosystem by definition is emerging in
that sense.
>> Y
>> and I I say so with a great degree of
optimism about the possibility because
because I chose to physically move from
Silicon Valley in New York where I'd
spent 20 years to the middle of the
country and to be building our firm and
our family here has just been such a a
wildly interesting ride. And so I'm
excited to talk more about that. But our
our whole thesis is rooted in exactly
that. It's capitalizing on these markets
that are that are hidden
>> gigantic global opportunities.
>> You can't imagine now you and I are
family people. You have kids. I have
kids right?
>> You can't imagine some of these young
founders starting and raising a family
in downtown San Francisco, could you?
>> I can imagine doing it everywhere,
right? But the circumstances are are
very different. And I think
>> yeah,
>> one of the things that
>> Minnesota too where my my chosen home
state now is consistently rated one of
the top places in the country to raise a
family in fact and there's a lot of
things going for for us here. But I
think ultimately it's that sense of
community but from the perspective of
building a company
>> markets like Minnesota and many others
around the country.
One of the biggest draws is the capital
efficiency of building a business in a
market like this, right? It's it's just
talent is more affordable, cost of
living is more affordable, the cost of
office space is more affordable. Some of
the fundamental pillars of of building
give you a huge advantage.
>> Now that you're seeing like a lot of the
capital go to San Francisco with the AI
boom, does does that is that hard for
you to see leaving there? And um
yeah, how do you how do you make that
counter case to the people and to the
founders that that you want to build for
you?
>> Well, I I would say that it's not that
the capital is leaving to go to San
Francisco. It's never left San
Francisco, right? It's sort of
>> it's been concentrated there. And and
you're right, a lot of the new funds
that are emerging are, you know, AI
focused funds. So are we. And I I think
it's a good thing that there is more,
you know, more activity more funding
happening in general and I really don't
see borders if you will. So from a
breadandbut ventures perspective for
example you know we invest nationally in
companies in three focus areas. So food
tech which is the the tech stack of the
global food supply chain digital health
which is the you know the tech
infrastructure and tech enabled care
delivery side of of digital health and
then the third is vertical SAS so
enterprise SAS more broadly especially
focused on supply chain manufacturing
future of work and the reason we've
chosen those three sectors
one it maps to our team's expertise and
backgrounds but two I think equally
important point it maps to the
enterprise backbone in Minnesota, which
before I moved here, I I really didn't
know. Minnesota is home to the highest
concentration of Fortune 500 companies
per capita in the nation. And companies
that you know and are really familiar
with ranging from EcoAB, Cargill,
General Mills, Target, 3M, Mayo Clinic,
Hormemell,
you know, you think about Securian
Financial, all headquartered here,
right? global companies but
headquartered here. We have an unfair
advantage in helping companies access
market, go to market more quickly by
leveraging that. So my counterargument
or my my pitch if you will when we're
talking with founders or talking with
LPs about investing in the in the firm
and the funds, it's that we really
aren't trying to replicate Silicon
Valley and build the next Silicon
Valley. We are trying to build
in the heart of America in the middle of
the country
>> in these durable built to last
industries from the ground floor and it
makes total sense to me having seen both
and
>> I have no um anti-Silicon Valley
sentiment. I absolutely love it. I grew
up there professionally and I think
there's so much merit to it and equally
I think there's so much merit just to
speak to to our own state now to
building unique modes and unique
advantages in ecosystems like like the
Midwest.
One of the modes that I see right away
is that your go to market strategy
because of the connected
network that you have in the Midwest
there with those big companies, you
could really take innovative technology
and find a market really instantaneously
if you have a good network. Right? Am I
wrong on that? you you can access one of
the the beautiful things that we've
built is you know how does bread and
butter leverage this Minnesota advantage
that I speak of? We've done so by
building formally what we call the
breadandbut innovation circle which is
19 enterprise partners large Fortune 500
large enterprise partners formally
working with breadandbut with our
companies and with each other right in
support of early stage innovation and
you're absolutely right Johan that the
flywheel of getting insights from
industries getting top- down insights on
what are their strategic priorities pain
points what's around the corner marry
that with bottoms up trend depends on
what are we seeing? We're seeing 2500
deals top of funnel per year. We're
really being able to aggregate themes
around what is
what's the pulse right now from the
ground floor in both directions. So for
example in healthcare thinking about um
you know the urban rural access
challenge thinking about how to enable
care delivery at high quality for more
people in more places. Thinking through
remote patient monitoring chronic care
management is been a huge topic. For
example food as medicine and addressing
long-term health through food at the
core is another big theme that's
emerging. We're seeing that both from
the healthcare side and from the big
enterprise side, on the food side, which
is really interesting from a supply
chain perspective. We're seeing
tremendous use cases for leveraging AI
to do everything from forecast planning
to demand planning to responding to RFPs
to managing, you know, customer
contracts. And a lot of the automation
that we've been talking about for years
is really kicking in. But we're able to
access from, you know, level zero, if
you will, from the ground floor, um,
much more quickly, no matter where the
companies are based. Being able to work
with the corporations here is a is a big
big advantage.
>> Yeah. And it's like having pragmatic use
cases. I it's uh there there was a a
meme that I saw. it was Canada specific,
but um the the Alberta,
you know, part of it was
very uh thinking about profit and an
actual business, whereas the coasts were
more up in the sky um with weird use
cases. But in the Midwest, it kind of
mirrors that to to the Alberta approach.
is like it's very pragmatic. You have
businesses that are real businesses with
real uh global markets and if you can
apply your latest and greatest tech
there like that is the use case that's
going to scale, right?
>> And it's it's real people solving real
problems in tangible industries
>> often bootstrap because they have had
to. And so you can find these very
generational profitable businesses
building in in steel manufacturing for
example
>> and you know it feels like the best kept
secret but it is really the throughline
of that those bread and butter if you
will you know sectors of the modern
economy and we have seen so much
trying to build this permeable membrane
between these titans of industry and the
emerging tech in their verticals. I'll
give you, you know, a recent example of
how we have worked with industry. We
are, we just led um the round of our
newest healthcare investment, a really
exciting company called Q rounds that
that happens to be based in Minnesota.
And they've built a communication
platform that is utilized in hospital
settings to do two things. One, it
optimizes the physician queue of
inpatient rounds when the doctor does
the rounds in the morning. And at two,
it answers that ever important age-old
question. You know, when will the doctor
be here for the family? Providing time
transparency of okay, Mary's in the in
the queue for 9:45 is her rounding time.
Do you as my family member want to RSVP
to join in person? Do you want to join
virtually? Oh, the doctor got pulled
into a meeting now. That time is pushed
out to 10:45.
It's it's a health equity play, too, in
terms of who has access to be at the
bedside. Not everybody can be at the
bedside of their loved one for let's say
a month. And so it actually allows
family members to join and provides real
time language support if that's needed.
And so we we talk about the workflow
optimization on the one hand. It's
vertical SAS healthcare SAS. From a
patient experience perspective, it's
gamechanging and it's super intuitive.
And so with Dr. Mike Pittz, the founder
and CEO of the company. We met him a few
years back when it was an early idea and
earlier than Brennan Butter would invest
and we stayed in touch, but they were
reintroduced to us via Fairview Health
System, one of our partners on the
enterprise side who had been deploying
Hurounds internally for over 2 years and
resurfaced it for us saying, "Hey, the
ROI data here, the outcome data is
incredibly compelling. It's worth, you
know, taking a look as I think about the
round of funding." So we ended up
reconnecting being blown away by what
they're building and led their seed
round earlier this year. So as an
example of keeping that relationship and
then also validating with industry early
and now trying to lean in to help them
scale nationally uh you know Q rounds
across the across the country.
>> You you have a a very big insight into
this. Are we in an AI bubble? Like, are
we seeing
valuations at the sea level too high?
Um, what do you think?
>> I think that we are in an AI bubble.
Absolutely. I don't think we're near the
peak of the bubble. And I think
AI
in a sense is an adjective across
building companies or operating or
working adapting to this environment. So
there are some pure native AI companies.
Absolutely. And then there is the
adjective across every company I think
needs to understand where they are in
the AI continuum and have a a
look around the corner perspective on
that and being able to articulate that
in sales meetings with customers with
investors with potential investors. And
the strategy can actually be we're not
embracing AI. we maybe use it internally
to optimize our efficiency, but we're
not an AI native company. I do think
that yes, you're seeing a lot of the the
coastal in particular,
you know, idea on paper huge valuation
out the gate that we saw in a little bit
in in 2021 too and we've seen in in
previous cycles. But our approach is a
fewold. One, absolutely try to remain uh
fluent current educated testing
building, shipping stuff as a team
internally to experiment. Two is trying
to you know do lean into tech diligence
too when we invest in AI companies which
we we absolutely do. And then three is
work with the portfolio as I alluded to
earlier to understand what what are the
AI components of their strategy and then
how does that help or hurt our our pitch
and I would argue you know I'm a
healthcare investor where I spend most
of my time investing in B2B technology
that sells into health systems health
plans provider networks
that is a we're in the early innings
from an enterprise level adoption still
and some of the companies currently
having the most success are not lenient
to AI
>> and in so I think it's it's part of it
is understanding the timing curve and
where
where and when that's going to land when
you have long enterprise sales cycles.
So thinking about absolutely dreaming
about tomorrow and the future but also
being very pragmatic about what's the
business today
>> I guess and real benefit to the patients
real benefit to the doctors um and how
this technology can actually help that's
a that's an interesting perspective were
you around for the um do bubble do you
take uh well you don't have to answer
that
I was I was alive. [laughter]
>> I was in I was in college and so and
here's the thing. So I have I graduated
I joined Google in 2004 as I you know
joined as that year the company was
going public and so I have enjoyed for
most of my career in tech. We've been in
a you know a really strong market minus
the the 0809 the financial crisis the
housing crisis. Um and that time I was
working at Google. So from a venture
perspective you know we've been enjoying
a pretty long run of market conditions
and that's changed that's that's you
know a general statement I think within
specific sectors things have transformed
a lot in the last six years with the
pandemic as well. Think about, you know,
we invest in in the food system and in
healthcare. And there were actually
tremendous tailwinds for both of those
industries coming through the pandemic.
A lot of investments in teleaalth and
infrastructure, a lot of investments in
supply chain, a lot of investments in
you know some of the the um the
emergency
um protocols where regulations were
momentarily suspended. For example, in
teleaalth, right? reimbursements were
flowing. A lot of innovation could be
tested during that time actually. So
>> I feel like we're
we're always, you know, it's it's always
cyclical. But if you go back and look at
the markets from returns perspective,
the venture fund vintages coming out of
those cycles
performed extraordinarily well from
>> the dot,
>> the 08 09
>> and even coming out of the pandemic. And
so I'm I'm hopeful and confident it's a
great market to be building a company,
but also to be to be investing from a
venture perspective.
>> Yeah. And um those events definitely
give you a lot of perspective and it's
you're just not too focused on uh one
thing. You can see the trends over long
term which I which I bet is a great
skill to have as a as a VC. Well, and
what was what was your experience in
that time if you from a kind of venture
perspective?
>> Oh, man. I I just remember going down
the stairs at my local mall and seeing
um Bill Gates on the TV talking about
Enarta DVD uh CDs and how encyclopedias
on disc were the next big thing. And
then there was a small kiosk with uh the
internet being demoed on a Netscape
navigator browser uh with with with Mr.
Starchy Tuberhead and like it was like
the formation
9697 the formation of the internet right
there and and how people viewed it
differently. Um even a titan like Bill
Gates and how they pivoted too with
Internet Explorer. But uh it it's just a
great it was so hypy very hypy at the
time. You you had the word internet or
you had the word web in your name.
It was people playing stocks. It it it
felt very similar to nowadays.
>> It really now the joke is you just get
theai domain, right? I mean it it feels
uh so so while I was still in school in
that cycle having lived through and
being at Google through the kind of the
the mobile revolution cloud computing
quantum now AI it does feel like a
different era fundamentally has shifted
and you know I have nine-year-old twins
and experiencing
the world and introduction to tech
through their lens through their eyes it
is a completely different I mean it
wasn't that long ago that we were in
their age you know and it fundamentally
feels like like lifetimes ago and I
think there are there are positives and
negatives but really just trying to I
would say embrace
but also embrace with caution right we
we much invest in tech that
>> is has human in the loop or human at the
center
>> when you speak about healthcare
specifically I fundamentally believe
that the applications of AI to health
care will be the most important
applications of our lifetime and I'm
really excited about it
>> and the caution comes from it's lives
its patient lives at stake
>> right and so when in our work with
health systems we and health plans we
think through that continuum of
applications of AI on the front end to
infrastructure the administrative
backend operational efficiency as as one
bucket then we think about the
application of AI to augment things like
clinical decision support where
ultimately human is at the center still
and then optimizing care delivery,
right? And and personalized medicine
>> and the ability to harness the power of
data which we all know to be so powerful
but so many health healthcare
organizations simply
>> cannot utilize the treasure trove of
data that they have. It's unstructured.
It's there isn't a team internally to
support it. And so we've made
investments in companies like NimbleMind
AI as an example, multimodal data
platform specifically for clinical
healthcare data to really harness the
power of it and to standardize it and to
utilize it and to be able to train LLMs
with it. And so I do think that's the
next frontier and we, you know, we want
to be here on the early side.
>> Yeah. No, I seen a an article recently
about how AI is helping diagnose things
earlier, uh curing things earlier. It's
it's really amazing how how this is
helping. Um do you think going back to
the macro level like do you think
>> AI is as big as the internet or
>> bigger in a way?
>> Gosh, that's a great question. I wish I
had a crystal ball. I think it I think
it could be. It does feel like we've
entered a new era and it's it's
happening fast. I have a lot of
you know there's I have concern for
example about the environmental impact
and some of the longer term
elements that we are talking about as
front and center right now but I I do
think and just robotics in general too
has been an area we've spent a lot of
time investing in specifically currently
with respect to the to our food tech
investing and the supply chain and
restaurant tech right we have a an
awesome company called XRobotics that is
robotics and automation for within the
restaurant setting and they're live
within um with within the pizza
preparation line for example at at
restaurants and just thinking through
that future where it feels like you know
it was a movie 10 years ago and we're
actually seeing from a supply chain
logistics manufacturing
a lot is happening from that from the
automation side so I I do think it is
the next frontier of how we think about
labor of how we think about workforce of
how we think about communication
and I'm very cognizant to that I feel
fortunate to be in that generation that
I think has will have experience and
bridge both analog digital and I don't
know if you AI it's third category right
we had the VH
>> I heard of you must be Gen X
>> is that what uh
>> yeah so it's just a it's a fascinating
time to be alive
>> hey you know what we might even be the
first generation or one of the
generations to also go to uh space
fairing as well like who knows like this
we still have many years left right and
>> I know
>> and uh on on that note it's like you see
all of this abundance in terms of
intelligence in terms of digitization in
terms of our knowledge everything is
just kind of like exponentially going up
even scientific discoveries uh human
productivity.
What do we do with all of it? It's just
a small little world that we're on.
We're on a small pale blue dot here. Um
I know what I think's going to happen.
What What are your thoughts? Like what
happens to to to us as a as a as a race,
as a civilization?
>> You you think you know what's going to
happen?
>> Oh, yeah. I know what's going to happen.
>> What's going to happen?
>> We're we're going to be multilanetary. I
think that's that that's the whole
thing. like we have a lot of abundance
in terms of uh like I said all of those
different things probably energy very
soon and the only thing left is just to
to to leave this planet and and uh do
something else with it. I'm not going
personally. I like the earth but you
know some other people can go.
>> I think it's very likely there there
absolutely is is life within other
ecosystems. I mean that just a
mathematical probability. I
I've been really focused lately on on
trying to be I think because of this
this massive shift of digitization so
rapidly. I've I've actually been and
while leaning into that as much as
possible, also trying to lean back into
the human humanity and the human
connection side and the mindfulness side
and the,
>> you know, and trying to raise great
humans too.
>> Just really has has made it so poignant,
if you will.
>> Yeah. And I think in in the because of
growing up at Google professionally all
those years, I've always uh hoped to be,
you know, such an early adopter and on
the aggressive side of of all of that.
And I remember um you know, my husband
was really early at YouTube and he built
out the news and politics team there,
too. The first time that YouTube was
used in a presidential election was the
'08 presidential race. and you know this
the hope and promise of what the
internet what social media could be in
these contexts. And you fast forward,
you know, a couple decades later and you
see
how that has evolved right into the the
fake news and and some of the challenges
of you we we we build so rapidly that
sometimes the
the community parameters around that or
the regulatory framework around that
isn't built in parallel. And so I think
it's thinking trying to to step back
amidst all the excitement and and
actually think at a systems level to
your point about what are the what are
the long-term implications and what do
we need in place to navigate that
thoughtfully before it is a
disaster to to fix.
>> Yeah, it's an exciting time to be alive.
um what what keeps you the and I and I
really did like that point that you had
about um human- centered and um it it AI
is really giving people the opportunity
to say
do you embrace parts of humanity, you
know, like do you cherish it even? And I
and I think I have a thesis of why like
the TCG market, the comic market, the
collectibles market is doing really well
because the these are are artifacts of
human sort of like culture. Um, and it's
just uh people equate it with like a on
a human level, right? Like they've
played games with Pokemon and Magic and
all of these different comics and and
that's why it's going nuts right now.
So, so that's kind of like my thesis on
on why that is.
>> I think there's this this has been the
summer of or the spring of nostalgia for
the '9s, the [clears throat] big trend
of everything from fashion to just the
whole concept that we,
>> you know, if we arranged to meet for
lunch at noon, you either show up or you
didn't. If if I'm running 10 minutes
late, I can't just text you and tell
you. You have to wait there and wait it
out and figure you leave, do you not?
and you know just that that the beauty
of of that to serendipity and the I
think there is a nostalgia for those of
us who experience that that time frame
and
>> and
it's it's well it's interesting just to
see will we revert to that um a bit more
over the coming years.
>> It's funny you mentioned that because
that's how I met my wife. I was I had a
date with her and I was I don't know 20
minutes late and she just decided to
stick around because she was uh
>> she was intrigued.
>> Um well, she was intrigued but also like
it it took her a long bus ride to get
there. So it's like you know I'll stick
around and and then uh she could have
gone she could have left and take
another bus and go back but uh she stuck
around and uh that was very human
element right there.
>> It was meant to be.
>> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Um well I thank
you so much for coming on. The the last
thing I wanted to ask you on was like
you you had supported so many
entrepreneurs at Google. Um you now have
your own firm. What is what are you
excited about moving forward and what
kind of companies you vested in? And
lastly what are some of the pains that
you experience being out of major
markets like you just mentioned?
>> Sure. Some of the things I'm excited
about I there's such a sense of and and
the business model of venture, right, is
100%. It's financial return. We we know
the business model and we're we're we're
laser focused on that. And I I believe I
feel so fortunate that the sectors that
we have that we have chosen to invest in
that we get to invest in every day are
some of the most fundamentally important
problems for humanity around the food
supply chain, around healthcare, you
know, around the future of of the
planet. I I truly feel it's a joy and a
privilege and an intellectual gift
frankly to see thousands of of
opportunities a year and then ultimately
to roll up the sleeves and go deep with
with dozens and we have 85 companies in
the portfolio currently and I could you
know talk your ear off all day long
about some of these solutions for and
the power of a company that um I was
meeting you know earlier today with with
Caitlyn Christine the founder and CEO of
Gabby one of our portfolio companies in
women's health and Gabby as a as a
virtual breast specialist helping drive
helping women understand their risk
assessment and ultimately drive early
detection of breast cancer
>> and using an AI powered algorithm
>> right and it's it's they are have
already driven detections that have
saved lives and when when that's the the
goal I mean it's so fundamentally so I
I'm really excited about the application
of of AI in this next era to problems
like that and to some of these most
fundamental problems that are at the end
of the day data challenges in many ways.
>> And so, you know, expect to see us being
continue to be super active uh in these
areas and think about as we usher in the
next wave of manufacturing of supply
chain. A lot of these industries are
operating with analog infrastructure and
then that shift to digital is
transforming over the next you know 1 2
3 5 10 years. And so Ventures is well
positioned for for that. So that's one.
Two, to your question about, you know, I
love
being in that in the underdog um kind of
swimming against the current a bit too,
if you will. And what we're trying to do
from a venture perspective and the
business model, that's not new. what is
new is volitionally choosing is
identifying I think opportunity
going there and trying to unlock it and
harness it
>> nationally from a specific place and
that's what I feel we're in the early
inning still of our breadandbut thesis
around this Minnesota homefield
advantage and our innovation circle with
our 19 partners we're six years into
that strategy now of leveraging of
building and leveraging that corporate
at work. And I'm so excited because I
really think that is the the bread and
butter, if you will, of of the team and
our work. It's how do we create that
flywheel back of industry, you know,
companies being built, selling into
industry, exiting, doing it again. And
we have the opportunity of our lifetime
and it's sitting right here. So my call
to action, you know, to to folks,
whether that be LP Capital, founders,
and an interesting stat, so we've
raised, you know, we're playing out of
our fourth fund now. Collectively, it's
almost evenly split. About half our LP
capital is from Minnesota based limited
partners and about half is from coast to
coast and from Boston to the Bay Area,
everything in between. And I I really
like that because I think that, you
know, we aren't trying to build in a
silo. We aren't investing in companies
only based here. We aren't investing in
companies that only serve Minnesota or
the Midwest market. What we are trying
to do is to shine a light on these
incredible opportunities. And we
absolutely invest in Silicon Valley, New
York, and Boston 100%. We think that,
you know, opportunity is everywhere. and
to try to build those networks of of
helping companies who are based in the
middle of the country access capital as
partners on the coast. You know, it's
it's really to build that one giant
impactful ecosystem. So, it's been
great, but I it has been it is a
challenge when
there isn't the same density here. We
have phenomenal companies being built
here who often will move to the coast
right when they hit series A or B or C
>> and
well while I think that you know
that has made sense historically because
they you go where the capital is I think
less and less it's making sense because
investors are investing everywhere.
You're making decisions virtually.
You're supporting companies virtually.
It's not about the 50 mile drive radius
anymore. So I'm I'm really excited about
the the new frontier.
Yeah. And it seems like you're I just
picked up on it, but like you seem to be
doing a lot for women's health, which is
like know a lot of
>> on is chronically been underfunded, you
know, in in certain ways. I talked to I
talked to other founders like that
serving that ecosystem. moms
um who apparently are the uh well not
apparently I know this for a fact the
the biggest spenders in the household
>> controlling the controlling the economic
spend of the United States yes it is it
is women who control that largely by the
percentages moms from a household
purchasing perspective and yes you know
it's interesting because we have we have
a quite a large women's health portfolio
and another company you know Delfina in
the maternal health space AI powered you
know maternal health platform form that
does maternal fetal monitoring to
predict complications using AI and then
to to create and execute a care plan,
right, to help um another another great
example. But I do think that women are
half the population. So we're not when
we talk about underserved market, it's
underserved absolutely from an
investment perspective, but from a from
a user perspective,
it's maybe the greatest economic
opportunity of our time, right? it's to
build for the other half of the
population. And I'm so excited because a
lot of the healthcare models currently
have been trained using data that's
that's not uh you talk about Gabby, the
breast cancer uh detection company I
mentioned earlier. Their algorithm is
built on the largest most diverse data
set in the world, which is so exciting,
right? because it's the the current
algorithms for breast cancer risk
assessment were not trained using data
of people who look like me.
>> And so that's just a really
fundamentally exciting thing where you
know all this data exists. The ability
to to harness it to structure it and to
use it uh is is where we're focused.
>> That's so cool and and that's a that's a
absolutely great sort of perspective and
thesis. So, thank thanks Mary for coming
on. I'll uh let you get back to your
idealic life out in Midwest. And uh
>> come visit us, please. And I thank you
so much for this opportunity. It's such
a such a fun conversation. And yes, to
anyone listening, you know, I really
just um it's inspiring to see
opportunities in other places and would
just invite invite all of you to come
spend time with us in Minnesota or
virtually, right? bread ventures.com is
our website and we do have open office
hours there that that you could book to
have a virtual chat with with any of our
partners. Um we'd love to get to know
you and just uh do more together. So,
thank you for the time, Johan.
>> You're welcome, Mary. Thank you.