Sam Brasch has been the head of KP Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of healthcare company Kaiser Permanente, for more than a decade.
Founded in 1997, KP Ventures has invested in and helped support over 65 companies, representing some of the most important innovations in healthcare delivery over the past quarter century. Its mission is to leverage the insights that come from those leading Kaiser Permanente’s healthcare systems and care delivery to identify the most pressing needs within healthcare – and select the innovations that most effectively address those opportunities.
The unit has made around 100 investments to date, and its most recent deals include participation in the $75m series C round for Big Health, a digital therapeutics specialist, and involvement in the $33m series B raise for NOCD, a digital therapy platform for sufferers of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Among KP Ventures’ exits have been Health Catalyst, a health data analytics platform which listed on the NASDAQ exchange in 2019, and mental-health support service Ginger, which was acquired by digital health platform Headspace in 2021.
Prior to joining Kaiser, Brasch was vice-president of venture capital firm Frazier Healthcare Partners. Over the course of his career in venture investing, he has been an investor and board member for a number of leading healthcare businesses, including both Ginger and Health Catalyst as well as cardiac monitoring service iRhythm and Collective Medical, a healthcare communication service.
Brasch has a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Stanford University and an MBA in healthcare management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
