Cadence: Christopher Altchek & Kareem Zaki
The founders of the General Catalyst, Thrive, and Coatue, backed $1b business perspectives on building Cadence, a remote care management platform
In October 2021, I spoke with Christopher Altchek and Kareem Zaki of Cadence shortly after the team came out of stealth with $40 million in funding led by General Catalyst, Thrive, and Metrodora Ventures. Shortly after, Cadence announced an additional $100 million in funding led by Coatue at a $1B valuation.
Delivering care remotely, specifically to manage chronic conditions including hypertension, heart disease, or Type 2 Diabetes, is abysmal in the United States. According to Altchek, over half of the U.S population, aged 65+ is suffering from a chronic condition. As most individuals with a parent or loved one know, managing care and bridging the offline and digital care continuum can be a challenge for both patients and clinicians. COVID-19 accelerated digital health and pulled the future forward with telemedicine. It compelled providers to engage with digital solutions to realize the full breadth of care that can be provided virtually. Still, according to the founders of Cadence, a holistic solution that brings together patient data on one platform does not exist. Cadence is looking to improve outcomes for patients by working with an impressive group of health systems to deliver care outside the four walls of a hospital.
Chris is the former founder of Mic (2011-2018). Kareem is a GP at Thrive and co-founder of Cedar. Shortly after selling Mic, Chris joined Thrive as an EIR and spent time with the incubations team to identify opportunities in health-tech. Over two years, Chris landscaped the healthcare space and uncovered this massive problem where tens of millions of Americans remain unserved. Chris shares his lessons from building Mic and how 8-years of learnings have helped Cadence in its early days of going from zero to one. In our conversation, Chris shares insights on building a product that boosts patient engagement but also supports clinicians so that a solution doesn't add additional work, but fits within typical workflows and the lives of patients.
Thrive’s model of incubating healthcare businesses is not new. Oscar is perhaps the most well-known Thrive incubation. Cedar, founded by Florian Otto (who was also on the Finding Genius series), is another incubation co-founded by Kareem. In this conversation, Kareem shares more about Thrive's incubation model and how their team identifies the founders they decide to build with. By seeing themes emerge across a portfolio, Thrive focuses on big needle-moving opportunities, with most being in healthcare.
Chris and Kareem are experienced founders and share many valuable lessons on building a digital solution in a complex industry.