What Define Ventures does

Define Ventures is a privately held, early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Silicon Valley (San Francisco) that invests exclusively in digital health and health tech companies from incubation through Series B. The firm manages approximately $800 million in assets under management across six funds, with Fund II closed at $200 million in January 2021 and Fund III plus an Opportunities Fund closed at $460 million in April 2023. Define Ventures was founded and is led by Lynne Chou O'Keefe (Founder & Managing Partner), a former Kleiner Perkins Senior Partner in Healthcare Venture who partnered on Livongo (NYSE: LVGO, acquired by Teladoc for $18.5B). The firm's portfolio spans roughly 28 named companies across consumer health (Hims & Hers NYSE: HIMS, FOLX Health, Tia, Found), payer/provider workflow (Cohere Health, Centivo, Concert Health, DexCare), AI/clinical workflow (Luminai, Layer Health, Hyro, Foundation Health), specialty virtual care (9amHealth, Story Health), and pharma/clinical trials (Verana Health, Lightship, Crescendo, Double Blind Bio), with reported cumulative exit value of approximately $23 billion.

Define Ventures generates revenue through classic venture capital fund economics — management fees on committed capital and carried interest on fund profits — and supplements this with the Define Digital logged-in founder resource platform, a published insights/research function (including the 'House of Healthcare' AI investment framework and an AI Pharma C-Suite Report), and annual proprietary events (Founders Summit, AI + Healthcare Summit, JPM Payer/Provider Forums). The firm's value proposition to portfolio founders centers on enterprise healthcare coalition access (72% of partner companies have customers from Define's network of large health systems, payers, employers, and life sciences companies), senior talent placement at two of three partner companies, and follow-on capital sourcing (approximately $1.6 billion raised by founders since initial investment). The legal entity is Define Ventures Management, LLC, an independently owned firm with no parent company.

The firm's competitive positioning rests on a curated senior team and advisor bench that uniquely blends healthcare operators and AI/technology leaders: Venture Partners include Bruce Broussard (former Humana CEO), Frank Williams (former Evolent Health CEO), and Carolyn Magill (former Aetion CEO); advisors include Toby Cosgrove (former Cleveland Clinic CEO), Peter Fine (former Banner Health CEO), Jia Li (former Global Head R&D, Google Cloud AI), Dr. Nigam Shah (Chief Data Scientist, Stanford Health Care), Ashley Yuki Alexander (OpenAI VP Healthcare), Brook Byers (Kleiner Perkins Senior Partner Emeritus), and Beth Bierbower (former Humana Segment President). Distribution to enterprise healthcare buyers is facilitated by direct relationships with Humana, Intermountain Health, Cleveland Clinic, Hackensack Meridian Health, Sutter Health, and Banner Health.

Name

Define Ventures

Legal name

Define Ventures Management, LLC

Website

https://definevc.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Define Ventures is a privately held, early-stage digital health venture capital firm managing approximately $800 million across six funds, investing from incubation through Series B in category-defining health tech companies and pairing capital with deep healthcare operator and enterprise buyer coalition access.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Venture Capital / Private Equity (Digital Health)

NAICS

Other Investment Pools and Funds (5259)

SIC

Investment Advice (6282)

akta.pro primary industry

Early-Stage Venture Capital (Series A/B) (FSANAAAB)

Keywords

• Early-stage venture capital
• Digital health investing
• Health tech venture capital
• Venture fund management
• Healthcare AI investments

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Venture Capital Fund Management: Define Ventures generates revenue through classic venture capital fund economics: it raises capital from Limited Partners (LPs) into multi-fund vehicles (6 funds, $800 million AUM) and invests across stages (Incubation, Seed, Series A, Series B). Revenue is derived from management fees on committed capital and carried interest on fund profits. The firm has helped its founders raise $1.6 billion (also cited as $1.5 billion) in follow-on capital since initial investment.
2. Capital Gains from Exits: Define's portfolio has generated $23 billion in exit value cumulatively, including high-profile exits such as Hims & Hers (NYSE: HIMS) and Livongo (NYSE: LVGO, acquired by Teladoc). Realized exits generate carried interest distributions and reputational capital that fuels future fundraises.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

Define Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that raises capital from Limited Partners into multi-fund vehicles and invests in digital health and health tech startups from the Incubation stage through Series B. The firm pairs capital with operator-led company-building support, enterprise GTM introductions to a coalition of large health systems, health plans, employers, and life sciences companies, senior talent and board placement, and a proprietary founder resource platform (Define Digital). Core fund vehicles total approximately $800M in AUM across six funds as of April 2023.

Product overview

Define Ventures operates as a single unified venture capital fund platform rather than a traditional software product company. Its core offering is a multi-stage digital health venture capital fund (6 funds, ~$800M AUM per the About Us page) that invests in early-stage health tech companies from Incubation through Series B, supported by a dedicated founder-resources platform called Define Digital (a logged-in portal at /log-in) and a published Insights, News & Events research publication that includes market thesis content such as the 'House of Healthcare' AI framework and the Pharma C-Suite AI Report. The 'products' listed in this array therefore describe Define Ventures' fund vehicles, founder platform, research publication, and community events rather than a SaaS product portfolio.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Define Digital: Define Ventures' resources platform custom-crafted to support founders' journeys from the earliest stages to impactful scale.

Products and services

• Define Ventures Funds (multi-fund venture capital platform) Multi-stage venture capital fund platform that invests in early-stage digital health and health tech companies from Incubation through Series B, managing approximately $800 million in AUM across 6 funds (including Fund II of $200M raised January 2021 and Fund III plus an Opportunities Fund of $460M raised April 2023). Capital is deployed through direct investments and syndicated rounds, with revenue derived from management fees on committed capital and carried interest on fund profits.
• Define Digital Founder Resource Platform Proprietary logged-in resource platform custom-crafted to support Define Ventures' portfolio founders from the earliest stages through impactful scale. Founders authenticate via email/password to access proprietary resources.
• Define Ventures Insights & Research Publication Long-form insights and research publication from Define Ventures covering Company Building, Announcements, People Matters, and Market Insights categories. Includes proprietary market research reports such as the AI Pharma C-Suite Report and the 'House of Healthcare' AI investing thesis.
• Define Ventures AI + Healthcare Summit and Founders Summit Annual proprietary invite-only summits (AI + Healthcare Summit held May 1, 2025 with OpenAI co-founder & president Greg Brockman as speaker; Founders Summit held annually in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025) that bring together the portfolio founder community, C-suite executives, and ecosystem partners for sourcing, community building, and brand.
• Inside the C-Suite Pharma AI Report Proprietary research report published by Define Ventures based on research with executives from 16 of the top 20 pharma companies, Big Tech firms (AWS, NVIDIA, Oracle Health & Life Sciences), and venture-backed companies (Tempus AI, Datavant). Available as a downloadable PDF gated lead-capture asset.

Quantifiable outcome

• $800 million AUM across 6 funds
• +11 more outcomes

Named customers30 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability5 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

18 partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

• HumanaflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2019Define Ventures co-incubated Cohere Health with Humana in 2019. Cohere Health has since expanded from automating prior authorization to becoming a clinical intelligence platform serving multiple U.S. payers. Per Define's AI thesis, Cohere processes more than 12 million prior authorization requests annually for over 660,000 providers nationwide. Humana remains a deeply embedded strategic partner across the Define portfolio.
• Kleiner PerkinscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures maintains deep institutional ties with Kleiner Perkins. Founder Lynne Chou O'Keefe is a former Senior Partner in Healthcare Venture at Kleiner Perkins (where she partnered with companies such as Livongo). Fund Advisor Brook Byers is Senior Partner Emeritus at Kleiner Perkins. Communications Advisor Amanda Duckworth is former Partner and CMO at Kleiner Perkins. Multiple Kleiner Perkins portfolio CEOs (e.g., Jim Pursley of Hinge Health/Livongo) serve as advisors. Kleiner Perkins' logo appears on Define's site as a 'leader from industry pioneers'.
• FOLX Health (via advisor A.G. Breitenstein)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Healthcare Advisor A.G. Breitenstein is Founder & Former CEO of FOLX Health and a former Co-founder & Partner at Optum Ventures. She was honored in Rock Health's Top 50 in Digital Healthcare (May 6, 2024) during her tenure as a Define advisor.
• Brook Byers (Kleiner Perkins Senior Partner)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Fund Advisor. Brook Byers has been a venture capital investor since 1972; formed the first life sciences practice group in VC in 1984 at Kleiner Perkins. Led Kleiner Perkins to become premier in life sciences, healthcare, digital health, and biotechnology. Has collaborated with Founder Lynne Chou O'Keefe for 12+ years. Sits on boards including Verana Health, Arsenal Bio, Octave Bio, Newsela. Stanford Center for BioDesign board, UCSF Medical Center Lifetime Board Member.
• Toby Cosgrove (Former Cleveland Clinic CEO)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Healthcare Advisor. Former CEO and current Executive Advisor of Cleveland Clinic; led the $8B organization from 2004-2017, ranked the #2 hospital in America (U.S. News). Board member of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, American Well, Hims & Hers (a Define portfolio company), and View. Holds 30 patents for medical innovations. Member, National Academy of Medicine.
• Jia Li (Former Global Head R&D, Google Cloud AI)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures AI Advisor. Co-founder of LiveX AI; Founding Global Head of R&D at Google Cloud AI; former Head of Research at Snap; IEEE Fellow. Adjunct Professor at Stanford School of Medicine; co-taught inaugural Generative AI and Medicine course at Stanford. PhD from Stanford CS.
• Dr. Nigam Shah (Chief Data Scientist, Stanford Health Care)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures AI Advisor (joined August 2025). Professor of Medicine at Stanford University; Chief Data Scientist for Stanford Health Care. 350+ publications, h-index 88, 38,000+ citations. Co-founder of the Coalition for Health AI. Boards include Prealize Health and Atropos Health. Co-founder of three companies that collectively raised over $100M.
• Beth Bierbower (Former Segment President, Humana)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Healthcare Advisor. 30+ years in health insurance including leadership of Humana's Group and Specialty Segment generating $7B+ revenue covering 11M members; led development of Humana's largest TRICARE contract valued at $40B. Currently serves on Boards of Option Care Health, BlueSprig, Paradigm Corp., Quest Analytics.
• Jim Pursley (President, Hinge Health)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Commercial Advisor. President of Hinge Health (NYSE: HNGE). Former Chief Commercial Officer for Livongo Health, where he helped take it public in 2019 and was part of the $18.5B Teladoc acquisition. Previously held leadership roles at GE Healthcare and Intel-GE Care Innovations.
• Peter Fine (Former CEO, Banner Health)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Healthcare Advisor (joined May 2025). Former President & CEO of Banner Health for 21 years; Banner operates 33 hospitals in 6 states with $14B+ revenue. Honored in Modern Healthcare's 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare for 11 consecutive years (2011-2023).
• Seth Cohen (President, Cedar)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Commercial Advisor. President and Board member of Cedar, the leading provider of patient financial solutions managing 30M+ patient interactions annually across 55+ clients. Previously co-founded OODA Health (acquired by Cedar in 2021); early employee at Castlight Health. Baker Scholar MBA from Harvard.
• Ashley Yuki Alexander (VP Healthcare, OpenAI; former Co-Head Product, Instagram)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Former Consumer Advisor. Currently VP of Product, Healthcare at OpenAI; formerly Co-Head of Product at Instagram; 10-year Meta veteran who built Instagram's ads business from the ground up. Dual degree in CS from UPenn and BS Economics/Marketing/Healthcare Management from Wharton.
• Bangaly Kaba (Director of Product, YouTube; former Head of Growth, Instagram)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Consumer Advisor. Product Management executive at YouTube managing Creator Monetization; previously Head of Growth at Instagram where he helped scale IG from 450M to 1B+ monthly actives in 2.5 years; former VP Product at Instacart; active angel investor and board member.
• Debby Meredith (Tech Advisor; ex-Netscape/AOL SVP)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Tech Advisor with 25+ years working with engineering and product teams. Former VenturePartner at Mohr Davidow Ventures. Former SVP Strategic Technologies & Products at Netscape/AOL, VP Engineering at Collabra Software and Slate Corporation. Trustee of the Computer History Museum. MS CS from Stanford, BS CS/Math from University of Michigan.
• Amanda Duckworth (Former Partner & CMO, Kleiner Perkins)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Communications Advisor. Reputation management expert; led Kleiner Perkins' communications team during the Ellen Pao trial. Founded and led the San Francisco office of Brunswick Group. Executive Partner at Next Horizon Capital. LL.B. from University of Wales.
• Optum Ventures (via advisor A.G. Breitenstein)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDefine Ventures Healthcare Advisor A.G. Breitenstein was a Co-founder & Partner at Optum Ventures prior to founding FOLX Health. Bridges Define's network with Optum/UnitedHealth ecosystem of payers and providers.
• Humana (commercial customer of Cohere Health)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerHumana is both the co-incubator of Cohere Health (with Define in 2019) and a customer of Cohere Health's clinical intelligence platform. Humana is repeatedly cited on Define's 'leaders from industry pioneers' logo strip and as a featured strategic enterprise healthcare partner. Cohere Health, under Define's partnership, serves multiple payers across the U.S.
• Livongo (exited portfolio of Founder's prior fund at Kleiner Perkins)minorOthersLivongo Health (NYSE: LVGO) is referenced throughout Define's content as a heritage company Founder Lynne Chou O'Keefe partnered on while Senior Partner at Kleiner Perkins. Livongo was acquired by Teladoc Health for $18.5B in 2020. Jim Pursley (Define Commercial Advisor) was Livongo's CCO.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio/Health: Andreessen Horowitz operates a dedicated bio/health fund investing across digital health, biotech, and healthcare AI. Like Define, it leads early-stage rounds in health tech founders but at significantly larger AUM and broader stage range.
• General Catalyst: General Catalyst runs a Health Assurance thesis investing across stages in healthcare transformation. Define co-invests with General Catalyst (e.g., Luminai Series B) and competes on similar enterprise-led digital health opportunities.
• Oak HC/FT: Oak HC/FT is a healthcare- and fintech-focused venture firm investing across stages. Like Define, it concentrates exclusively on healthcare with deep operator networks and a focus on services + technology convergence.
• Maverick Ventures: Maverick Ventures is an early-stage venture firm with a dedicated health practice investing in seed and Series A digital health. Direct comparable to Define in stage focus and check size.
• Flare Capital Partners: Flare Capital is an early-stage healthcare technology venture firm focused on digital health, health IT, and services. Direct comparable to Define on stage focus and enterprise-pilot-driven thesis.
• Health Velocity Capital: Health Velocity Capital invests in healthcare software, services, and technology-enabled businesses across stages. Direct comparable to Define in healthcare-only mandate and operator-led value-add model.

Broad incumbents

• Norwest Venture Partners: Norwest is a large multi-stage venture firm with a dedicated healthcare practice. It co-invested with Define in Hyro's growth round and competes for similar enterprise healthcare AI deals, though it operates as a generalist.
• Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer is a multi-stage venture firm with a long-standing healthcare practice. Define Principal Chuka Esiobu previously worked at Bessemer, illustrating talent and deal-flow overlap in early-stage health tech.
• KKR Health Care Strategic Growth: KKR's Health Care Strategic Growth strategy invests across healthcare services, tech, and life sciences with a growth-equity orientation. It competes with Define on later-stage health tech deals where strategic capital matters.

Emerging players

• Optum Ventures: Optum Ventures is the corporate venture arm of Optum/UnitedHealth Group investing in early-stage health tech. Define advisor A.G. Breitenstein co-founded Optum Ventures, creating deep network ties; it competes on enterprise-pilot-driven health tech deals.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/definevc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/definevc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles12 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments56 records

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Define Ventures