About What If Ventures
What If Ventures invests in disruptive healthcare and defense industrial startups. Each vertical has a personal connection to What If Ventures founder, Stephen Hays. The firm was founded in 2019 by Stephen Hays, after his own personal struggles with mental health and addiction fueled his desire to see more funding for solutions in that space. Since then, the firm has broadened its aperture and has deployed nearly $100mm into more than 80 disruptive healthcare startups. Prior to venture capital, Stephen was an investment banker in the Aerospace & Defense sector at some of the top bulge bracket investment banks in the world. He found his way into this sector as a U.S. Army Veteran and West Point graduate. While Healthcare and Defense may seem like markedly different markets, they are in fact very similar from a macro perspective. These are both markets with: 1) Very large addressable markets comprised of many fragmented smaller markets. 2) Complex regulatory landscapes. 3) Significant government customers who dominate the landscape (CMS & DoD). 4) Extremely large and influential commercial customer base (Insurance, Health Providers, Defense Primes, Aerospace OEMs, etc.) 5) Similar growth and margin profiles for mature businesses within these two sectors. 6) Lack of successful innovation by new entrants. These two markets are very difficult to innovate in, which resonates with the core of the What If Ventures ethos. What if we could? What if we did find a way to improve the lives of millions of people, or make the world safer, or disrupt decades old markets where the interests of the people are no longer served by the dinosaurs that benefit from the status quo? Let's go do that. That's what we are all about.