Fellowship Spotlight: Curb Cut Ventures

While African Americans make up less than 14% of the United States population, over 40% of Americans receiving insurance coverage from Medicaid are African Americans. “As an African American female in this country,” says Adimika Meadows Arthur, GP and founder of Medicaid-focused fund, Curb Cut Ventures, “this is super deeply personal to me.”  

Designing for the Most Vulnerable

Curb Cut Ventures is built on the ethos of equitable and inclusive universal design, inspired by the revolutionary concept of sidewalk 'curb cuts.' By mitigating the barrier that a curb creates for people in wheelchairs or other mobility aids, the curb cut – a curb ramp or depressed curb creating a gradation from the top of a sidewalk – revolutionized everyday navigation and accessibility by enabling smoother transitions for all. 

Curb Cut Ventures, a groundbreaking $30M venture fund focused on driving innovation for economic mobility among Medicaid recipients, takes its name from this innovation as a symbol of designing for the most vulnerable to create a more inclusive world for all. 

Like curb cuts, which benefit not only individuals with disabilities but also parents with strollers, travelers with luggage, and everyone navigating urban environments, Curb Cut Ventures strives to create opportunities that target underserved and overlooked founders. By embracing universal design principles, the fund recognizes that solutions tailored to accommodate the needs of vulnerable communities often yield more innovative and sustainable outcomes for all.

“We believe in building a crosswalk to venture,” Meadows Arthur says. To that end, she launched a campaign through Health Tech for Medicaid (HT4M) called “Venture for Medicaid,” aiming to revolutionize healthcare financing by fostering collaboration between venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to drive impactful investments in Medicaid.  

“I’ve always been driven by a deep sense of purpose to make a positive difference in my community,” explains Meadows Arthur, CEO and Executive Director of Health Tech for Medicaid. Before becoming a nonprofit leader, she worked in healthcare for over 25 years as an epidemiologist and hospital executive in large public city hospitals, an academic medical center, and a large not-for-profit system that serves over 3% of the patients in the U.S. She played a role in authoring the 1115 California waiver in 2005, which made California the first state to expand Medicaid. Her unmatched expertise in Medicaid earned her the informal title of “Madam Medicaid.” 

The Curb Cut Ventures Thesis and Strategy

Curb Cut Ventures exists to promote equity, inclusion and equitable design of products, services, and delivery systems in health tech. They do this by providing capital, resources, and other support to help overlooked startup founders build successful and impactful companies serving the 90M+ individuals on Medicaid. “Many startups interested in the Medicaid market have founders from diverse backgrounds and lived experiences who bring their unique insights to benefit the industry,” elevates Meadow Arthur.

The fund’s strategy starts with sourcing and identifying startups that have founders or leaders from untapped markets. “We look for companies with innovative solutions that address real world problems and have the potential for scalable growth.” Once they identify companies that fit the parameters they’re seeking, they provide them with funding, mentorship, advocacy, and access to their broad network. Over the fund’s 10-year lifespan, Curb Cut aims to invest checks ranging from $400K to $1M in 4 to 5 companies annually, or 20 to 25 companies in total. 

Driven by a Personal Connection to the Work

Throughout her life and career journey, Meadows Arthur has seen firsthand the pervasive challenges faced by the large cross section of the American population who receives insurance through Medicaid. “Without this lifeline of care, many of my family members and other people who look like me — who I go to the grocery store with, who are in my church community — would not have care at all.” Growing up in an economically deprived ecosystem, she was motivated from a young age by her proximity to the problem and felt a drive to create solutions. “Instead of waiting for someone else to solve issues, I decided to be the solution myself.”

“When I had the opportunity to see all 58 counties in California,” she shares, “and spend time in factories, in fields, all kinds of medical facilities, and on native tribal lands, I got to understand how this lifeline of care is so vital, even for people with financial means.” And while all of her own personal experience and exploration revealed a lot about the dynamics surrounding Medicaid, Arthur reports that her time as a hospital leader drove home the relevance of the program. This is how she gained clarity about the ways that Medicaid fuels things like palliative care and most children’s hospitals. 

And in addition to the expertise and insight that Meadows Arthur brings to the work, Curb Cut Ventures is backed by a diverse and socially responsible team of investors, all committed to achieving outsized returns while remaining mission-aligned. They bring a blend of expertise in VC and personal experiences that allow them to connect with founders on a deep level, understand their needs, and provide tailored support. 

The entire Curb Cut team is motivated by the desire to support innovative ventures that will create lasting change in the healthcare industry and reflect the communities they are serving. Their experiences and expertise across health equity, health technology, and healthcare systems uniquely position them to make this change. And further, as Meadows Arthur says, “We have personally faced and overcome many of the barriers that these entrepreneurs encounter, and our experiences guide and empower the founders we invest in.”

A Differentiating Approach

“What sets us apart is our singular focus on inclusion of Medicaid into the tech sector,” Meadows Arthur proposes. “While that’s our industry goal, there’s still a significant gap in addressing barriers related to people understanding Medicaid even though it serves a fourth of Americans.” Curb Cut’s laser focus on Medicaid leads them to leverage their resources and positionality in support of a wide range of people with different touch points working on this particular challenge. Meadows Arthur explains that this could be a founder with a disability; someone who grew up on Medicaid; a community health worker in an urban setting; or a resident of a rural setting where the nearest hospital is over 200 miles away. “This specialization gives us a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities.”

Successful navigation of the regulatory environment that Medicaid sits within requires in-depth understanding, which the Curb Cut team possesses. “We understand the federal and state relationships,” Meadows Arthur shares, “so we can help startups navigate this environment effectively and position them for success.”

Why Medicaid?

“Medicaid is a massive healthcare program in the United States, with the largest insured population in the country,” Meadows Arthur points out. Many of these people are experiencing poverty, but as she elevates, Medicaid also provides an insurance source for people with disabilities; people who’ve experienced traumatic events; people whose genetics require support services; and many actors and entrepreneurs. As a result of Medicaid’s reach, she explains, “There’s a significant market opportunity with a broad scope of innovation and investment opportunity, with a growing emphasis on value-based care, telehealth, and tech-driven solutions.” 

Because of the number and range of people and situations covered by the program, Medicaid often serves as a testing ground for new and groundbreaking delivery models. Meadows Arthur emphasizes that startups that address these changes can make a substantial impact on healthcare delivery for several differently vulnerable populations. 

“Startups that succeed in this space can potentially scale their solutions to any other healthcare market,” Meadows Arthur offers, bringing it back to the fund’s namesake. “The curb cut allows everyone to cross the street.” Curb Cut Ventures recognizes and is acting on this immense market opportunity that also creates the possibility for doing well while doing good. The fund is on track to make far-reaching and sustainable impact by investing in early-stage ventures leveraging digital health, telehealth, determinants of health, and emerging technologies. 

Misunderstanding Medicaid

Medicaid has been a cornerstone of healthcare in the U.S. since its inception in 1965, and its reach and relevance keeps growing. Just since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of Americans on Medicaid has increased by more than 20 million people, reaching upwards of 94 million people and over 25% of the national population. And even still, as Meadows Arthur shares, “Most people have misconceptions and biases about the Medicaid market.” 

Medicaid launched in the same year as Medicare. Meadows Arthur points to the languaging of the two programs as a clear reason for the different ways they’ve been perceived over the years. “Care is such a nice word that means love and support,” she says. “Aid means to help and suggests the recipient needs a handout. It doesn’t come with a positive frame. The biases start in how the program was named.”

Meadows Arthur emphasizes that, though Medicaid has a stigma to battle, it also has a rich and powerful history. “There are some beautiful stories about Medicaid,” she clarifies, “including a beautiful Black history story. Most minority doctors in this country could never even practice. They couldn’t go through the front door of a hospital; they had to go through the back door or the colored entrance. And Medicaid gave a legitimate payer source for many minority doctors to actually see patients.”

Curb Cut’s “Secret Weapon”

“One of the things that’s unique about Curb Cut Ventures is our dynamic and symbiotic relationship with Health Tech for Medicaid.” Health Tech for Medicaid (HT4M) is a 5-year-old nonprofit organization that serves both as Curb Cut’s deal flow partner and its ecosystem builder, amplifying the fund’s ability to create an environment that nurtures innovation and fosters stakeholder collaboration. “Because of this relationship, our deal flow is tremendous. We have a lot of exposure to entrepreneurs and it allows us to work with a lot of other folks in venture.” 

One of the primary benefits of the partnership is Curb Cut’s access to HT4M’s Underrepresented Founders Database, which is one of the largest databases of its kind in the country. The database creates easy access to information and support on BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, women, and gender-diverse health tech founders serving diverse populations. Another benefit is being engaged with HT4M’s work on their Venture 4 Medicaid (V4M) program, looking at how to orient capital markets to start thinking about Medicaid as a hotbed of innovation.   

Growing More than Financial Returns

“We understand that growth isn’t just about financial numbers,” Meadows Arthur shares. “It’s about nurturing visionary entrepreneurs who have the potential to revolutionize healthcare.” To this end, Curb Cut provides mentorship, strategic guidance, and access to their vast network of partners and resources to help entrepreneurs thrive as they grow. Along with Medicaid beneficiaries and caregivers, the Curb Cut network spans roles of advocates, entrepreneurs, health tech innovators, investors, payers, policymakers, and regulators, ensuring that founders have contacts in all of the intersecting areas their work touches.

Meadows Arthur underscores the massive alignment between investing in Medicaid and investing for social impact. “Investing in Medicaid startups aligns with a broader social impact mission,” she says. “It allows investors to support solutions that improve healthcare access, equity, and outcomes for all communities, but definitely for underserved, overlooked, and underinsured populations.”

Participating in the VC Include Fellowship

“The critical thing about programs like the VCI Fellowship,” Arthur asserts, “is the cohort methodology and the belief in seeing the future of venture before venture has seen itself.” She uplifts and celebrates the vision that Bahiyah, Rendel, and their team possess, to see not only the current reality of venture, but how investing in venture education will move the field forward by taking a chance on unconventional candidates, which Meadows Arthur perceives herself to be. “The fellowship matched someone very academic like myself with people who have been doing this in their sleep.”

After completing our fellowship, Meadows Arthur reports feeling incredibly prepared to step into her next adventure, Stanford’s VC Unlocked program. “I walked into that global classroom with 42 countries represented with a swag and a confidence that I never would have had if I hadn’t participated in the VCI fellowship. Having just finished my pitch video, I knew that I had a badass thesis. I have deep gratitude to VCI for providing me with access to networks of like-minded investors and experts.”

We’re more than happy to have brought Curb Cut Ventures into the VCI network and we’re excited to see the profound impact they make in the unique space they occupy in the VC landscape.