Dr. Maria Ulokoof argues the VC model fails women's health because it lacks clinical expertise and lived experience. She calls for rebuilding the system entirely rather than filling gaps, and says impact investors who prioritize societal outcomes over profit are better positioned to drive real change.
Chapters
one of the things about VC that won't work for women's health. Women's health is in shambles. We cannot build upon a system that's already broken. And I think oftentimes a lot of the, the companies in this space, because they don't have deep clinical experience and research experience and kind of the, the lived experience, this lens that I have, they're oftentimes creating systems upon a really poor foundation of like, okay, yeah, let's just build another company that fills in this small gap without— and I'm like, no, I wanna break down the system and build again. And one of the things that I have found is that I make more, more progress in the impact space because when people are thinking about change and, and systemic change, that's what impact investors are tend to, think about is they're thinking a little bit more broad than just like the bottom, the bottom line. This company is a shell company for the greater things I want to do. I want research for the world domination that comes with it, right? Exactly. Like, there's so much research, there's so much data, there's so much, there's so much systemic change that we can make through corporations if done well.