Fellowship Spotlight: Sequential Ventures

At the core of Roberto Rodriguez’s work with his firm Sequential Ventures is a deep belief in the possibility of doing well while doing good – an understanding that it isn’t necessary to compromise returns for the sake of social impact.

Growing up as the youngest of seven children to a 2nd grade educated single mother, Rodriguez reports that he understood at a young age that healthcare was for “the haves” – his infant sister passed away from something he presumes would have been addressed if she had timely access to care.

His own first visit with a doctor was at 14 years of age during an emergency hospitalization due to a preventable medical condition. Through this experience, he learned how powerful it is to have someone ask the right questions and truly listen, and it planted a seed that would ultimately lead him to his career in healthcare.

Doing Well While Doing Good

Sequential invests in venture-scale companies that are using technology to reshape healthcare and address the unmet needs of marginalized patient populations. These businesses are primarily led by founders with intimate knowledge of the problems they are solving, but who come from socioeconomic and educational backgrounds that are overlooked by traditional structures. The firm is writing checks mainly at the Pre-Seed and Seed stages to catalyze innovation within digital health and Social Determinant of Health (SDoH) improvement.

Sequential focuses on the earliest stages of corporate development because they believe they can help founders navigate complicated and established healthcare stakeholder relationships, and thus find product market fit sooner. Overlooked founders often struggle to gain a seat at the table with key stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem, which prevents new perspectives from proving their theses at scale. The firm differentiates by leveraging their ecosystem of health systems – such as Texas Medical Center (Houston), UChicago Medicine, and Sharp Healthcare (San Diego) – who want to support new, diverse perspectives to serve their increasingly diverse populations.

Rodriguez and his team are proving the idea that you can work toward a more representative, diverse future of healthcare and VC without sacrificing financial gain. “There’s a growing list of overlooked individuals who’ve successfully built unicorns by building solutions that improve health equity. Even with the well-documented dearth of funding available to underrepresented entrepreneurs. Whether it’s female or BIPOC founders, they’re proving that, when you have the right capital and resources, folks who have the lived experience – who know how to face adversity and empathize with their users – can truly reshape healthcare.”

Given that Sequential is committed to helping solve health challenges that disproportionately impact underserved and growing populations, “What’s really important,” Rodriguez says, “is to find solutions to real problems. What are the gaps in care and are these venture-scalable markets?” Asking this question led the firm to focus on some of the most prevalent problems among marginalized populations, that affect them at much higher rates with an outsized impact: diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney health, and mental health, among others.

“We first look at the issues we believe are most pressing for the populations we’re trying to reach and serve,” and they then invest in those who have viable proposed solutions for improving access and quality and lowering the cost of treatment for these persistent challenges.

Investing in the People Closest to the Problem

“It’s important to invest in technology that takes the user into perspective,” Rodriguez urges. He believes that proximity provides invaluable insight that serves as an accelerant when identifying strategies and tools to overcome a problem.

“A lot of what I try to do,” he shares, “is find founders who are so intimately related to the problem that they want to do whatever they can to fix it.” Sequential partners with first-time entrepreneurs, immigrants, first-generation graduates, diverse operators, and others who can draw upon lived experience to better meet the needs of previously misunderstood healthcare consumers.

Part of what makes this experience-based preference both necessary and impactful is the general lack of understanding among conventional founders about what’s truly at the root of healthcare inequities. “Health outcomes are mostly driven by social, cultural, and environmental factors,” Rodriguez offers. He and his team are thinking holistically about delivery of care throughout a patient’s entire life – not simply responding to symptoms but working to understand, illuminate, and address root causes. “We invest in healthcare but also look at ways to improve social determinants of health through technology.”

Sequential seeks out founders who are truly equipped to solve these embedded challenges with thoughtful, experience-informed, and effective solutions. An example of the founders in which they invest is Cameron Carter at Rosarium Health, which offers non-clinical interventions to help individuals age at home with dignity. “Cameron’s lived experiences growing up in south central Los Angeles has shaped his work in value-based healthcare strategy. We believe he’s the right person to create a home modification platform that seamlessly integrates all stakeholders, including payors.” Sequential participated in the company’s Pre-Seed round this summer, which was led by Rock Health and Primetime Partners, with participation from Flare Capital.

Why Rodriguez is on a Mission

Rodriguez’ life experiences have given him a clear window into the brokenness of the American healthcare system. “I’ve unfortunately had to deal with health inequity as a standard,” he says, as he describes the ways in which a lack of resources and cultural nuances made doctor visits the last thing on his mind during childhood.

Living as an undocumented immigrant in an underserved community from age 11 to 18 sharpened his view of health and social inequities, and how these two are intertwined. He watched as his mother worked hard as a health aide for an elderly person with multiple chronic health conditions, with only one day off every two weeks. She still works as an aide today. “I experienced the complexities and gaps in healthcare firsthand, but living at my mom’s place of work opened my eyes to the toll this kind of work takes on health care providers.”

After an eye-opening undergraduate tenure at Columbia University as the first in his family to go to college, Rodriguez spent five years in venture debt financing at Silicon Valley Bank, providing growth capital to digital health and MedTech companies. His time at SVB opened his eyes to the lack of dollars flowing to diverse founders, but he decided to go the entrepreneurial route before heading into VC. He saw this as a way to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges of operating a cash-burning company while also being an empathetic partner to folks who haven’t seen themselves represented in the worlds of technology entrepreneurship and VC. 

While completing his MBA at Chicago Booth, Rodriguez met his mentor and friend, Kennie Blanco, CIO and GP at L’Attitude Ventures. There, he helped lay the groundwork for L’Attitude’s first institutional fund, which has grown into a $101M effort investing in U.S. Latino entrepreneurs. He explains how this experience informed his next steps: “I learned that I didn’t need to wait another decade to make the impact I wanted to make. I realized that if you’re knowledgeable about a certain space and connect with partners who understand you and see the world through a similar lens, there’s an opportunity to make an impact now.”

He went on to spend a year at University of Chicago’s innovation fund, which writes $250K checks to healthcare technologies at the earliest of stages. He then became an investment Principal at a pediatrics-focused firm, where he led sourcing and investment execution within digital health.

“When I think about all my lived and professional experiences, Sequential Ventures feels inevitable.”

Participating in the VCI Fellowship

“One of the biggest challenges for me has been surrounding myself with the right sounding board,” Rodriguez acknowledges, “and I didn't necessarily do this right on my first try at building something on my own.” At this point, he prioritizes having an immediate network of people who can support him in making sure his biases and blind spots don’t obscure his view.

“Something I’ve been missing is folks who have very specific knowledge about the support emerging managers need, and also peers who are presently going through firm building right now.” He knows that, without the VC Include fellowship, finding this crucial network would have been much more difficult. “Having this cohort has been a great asset to my current work, and the advice has been so relevant and timely.”

It’s a great honor to be able to add value to Rodriguez’s work with Sequential Ventures, and we’re eager to see how he’ll continue to leverage his rich experiences and skillset in service of a more equitable healthcare system.