Meeting: Define Ventures
Date: 2026-02-18 Attendees: Thomas Startz, Michael Yuan, Chuka Esiobu (Define Ventures) Type: Intro Duration: ~21 min
Summary
Short, surface-level intro call. Chuka validated the FDE thesis and payer-first wedge but didn't dig deep on any dimension. Found DaisyAI on a "market map" — wouldn't say which one. Define is an investor in Cohere (concurrent review competitor) — this was not disclosed or discussed despite Thomas raising it at the top. Call pattern is consistent with either a quick screen or competitive intel gathering. Noncommittal close.
Questions Asked
| # | Question (verbatim/near-verbatim) | Topic | Answer Quality | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Were you guys part of ACM program?" | Team | strong | Thomas: yes. Michael: lottery. Chuka already familiar with ACM. |
| 2 | "Which health plan are you guys working with now?" | Traction | decent | Thomas said "West Coast Blue Cross Blue Shield plan" — didn't name Premera but effectively identified it. Would have been better to keep vaguer. |
| 3 | "How big is the team? Is it just you two for now?" | Team | strong | Thomas: just us, bootstrapping since graduation. Resonated. |
| 4 | "Where exactly in the stack are they starting you?" | Technical | strong | Thomas: appeals layer. Connected to labor market data (appeals analyst job postings). Good framing. |
| 5 | "What is your back end look like?" | Technical | decent | Thomas: FDE model, working within their systems. Chuka seemed to accept quickly — "fair enough." |
| 6 | "Are you guys raising anytime soon?" | Fundraise | strong | Thomas: yes, raising now. Natural transition. |
| 7 | "How much?" | Fundraise | strong | $2M seed. Two more technical hires + Cassie (clinical/ontology lead). |
| 8 | "How would you want to productize it over time?" | Business Model | decent | Thomas: licensing agreement for access/maintenance + retainer for FDE work. Referenced SaaS apocalypse. Decent but less crisp than Tau framework. |
| 9 | "Who else is in pipeline for you guys?" | Traction/GTM | decent | Thomas: focused on current plan, outsourcing groups interested, not pressuring for more FDE clients yet. Honest but revealed thin pipeline. |
| 10 | "What does success look like? What metrics do they want to track?" | Traction | weak | Thomas: haven't gotten to specifics yet. Honest but not great — shows engagement hasn't started. |
Concerns Raised
- Bespoke infrastructure: "Getting into the infrastructure for some of these payers — everyone's very different in their tech stack because they build some of the stuff internally." Implied: hard to scale.
- Lightweight initial offering: Suggested having something that "doesn't require you to get your hands dirty" as a qualification step. Implied: full FDE engagement might be too heavy for initial customer qualification.
What Resonated
- FDE thesis: "There's a lot of talk within our ecosystem right now around how do you take this forward deployed approach and really start to transform some of these bespoke workflows." Unprompted validation.
- Payer starting point: "Payers who are far less likely to buy a wrapper or enterprise SaaS solution. I think where you're starting makes a lot of sense."
- Platform over point solution: "More and more we are seeing what I'll call platform players in the market... going forward I think both providers and plans are going to want folks that touch a number of different use cases."
Our Commitments
- Thomas: Send demo and materials
Their Next Steps
- Chuka: "I'll let you know if it makes sense to connect" at ViVE with a colleague. Noncommittal.
Investor Insights
Define Ventures profile:
- $800M AUM — largest early stage healthcare player
- Chuka's background: BCG (0-to-1 team), Define 5+ years
- Co-founder Lynn was at Kleiner running healthcare
- Ideation to Series B, $1-20M checks, tend to lead/co-lead
- Portfolio: Cohere (concurrent review — DIRECT CONFLICT), others unmentioned
The Cohere question: Define is an investor in Cohere, which Thomas has identified as trying to move into concurrent review for 2 years. This was not disclosed or explored in the call. Thomas opened by mentioning excitement about discussing Cohere — Chuka didn't engage on it. The combination of (a) Cohere portfolio, (b) "market map" discovery they won't identify, (c) surface-level questions, (d) specific asks about which plan and where in the stack, and (e) noncommittal close raises the possibility this was competitive intelligence gathering.
Market map signal: Chuka said DaisyAI was "posted on a market map of sorts" and that's how they found them. Couldn't/wouldn't identify which map. This is a meaningful signal regardless of Define's intent — DaisyAI is being tracked and categorized by the market.
Interesting Moments
- Thomas opened with enthusiasm about Cohere ("the Wharton thing, Define, Cohere — lots of stuff to talk on"). Chuka did not pick up the thread. Could be avoiding the conflict, could be irrelevant to his process.
- Chuka's advice to "start to map out and work with some folks to get some Intel on the plans that you guys want to target" — generic VC advice or genuine gap he sees.
- "This is what I do" when asked how he found them — confident, dismissive, didn't elaborate on the market map.
- Call was 21 minutes. Shortest investor call to date by a significant margin.