#163 CurieDx: AI Pocket Doctor

Therese: My name is Therese Canares and I'm from Baltimore, Maryland. I've been a pediatric emergency physician for 10 years at Johns Hopkins. There's truly nothing like it. But that type of work, as powerful as it is, doesn't scale.

I’m Josh Muccio and this is The Pitch. Where startup founders raise millions and listeners can invest. Today on the show, Dr. Therese Canares pitches an app that can detect strep throat using the camera in your pocket.

Therese: Most of my physician colleagues think I'm crazy. I don't see it as leaving the medicine behind. I see myself as taking it with me to do something that is truly magical, life-changing, world-changing, healthcare-changing. This, I think, is what I'm here to do. 

The Pitch for CurieDx is coming up, after this. And whether you’re watching or listening on YouTube, Patreon or your favorite podcast player - thanks so much for subscribing, and don’t forget to turn on notifications.

[break]

Welcome back to The Pitch for CurieDx. Let’s meet the investors

Paige Finn Doherty with Behind Genius Ventures

What gets me to that hell yes conviction, it’s a founder that deeply understands both sides of the business

Elizabeth Yin with Hustle Fund

 you're an A plus founder.

Charles Hudson with Precursor Ventures

I feel like I’m the lone dissenter

Jesse Middleton with Flybridge

I don’t normally like edtech, but I really like you.

and Jenny Fielding with Everywhere Ventures

Toughen up there, lady! That’s healthcare!

[clap]

Charles: That one was solid

Jesse: You’re getting better every time. [footsteps]

[hellos]

Jesse: Jesse.

Therese: Hi Paige.

Paige: Good to see you again.

Elizabeth: Elizabeth. Nice to meet you.

Charles: Hey. Charles. [footsteps] 

Therese: This part's a delicate balance. 

Charles: You got it. 

Therese: Alright, so great to meet you all. My name is Dr. Therese Canares. I'm the CEO and founder of Curie DX and a pediatric emergency physician at Johns Hopkins. What I see in my patients every day is fear. Fear from not knowing why is my child sick. It's that fear that drives families to rush to the emergency room on a Friday night and wait three hours for what ends up being a cold virus. Now I want to keep families at home and relieve that fear, but here's the problem. For things like sore throat, you cannot do a strep throat test at home or on a video visit with your doctor. So my team and I created CurieDx. We're a mobile app that predicts diseases like strep throat using a smartphone image and AI. We're starting with strep. We have five other conditions in our pipeline. Think pink eye, urinary tract infections, kidney disease. We are building lab tests on your phone. We're using computer vision to build a B2B SAAS healthcare company. We launched last month. We have two pilot customers who are national primary and urgent care practices. And to reach patients faster, we're launching direct to consumer this month. Just in the last three weeks, we've partnered with eight physician practices covering 40 states to pair telehealth with our app. We've submitted two patent applications and received over 1.5 million in non dilutive and investment capital. We're now raising 4 million, which helps us reach our first 10,000 patients and get the strep product through FDA, from a screening tool to a diagnostic. Help us serve 2.1 billion patients globally who have to travel for swabs and blood tests and urine tests. We are building a world where you can answer the question, why am I sick, in seconds. 

Elizabeth: I definitely resonate with this, when you were talking about trying to check on strep throat remotely. I've actually tried, years ago when my kids were younger to use basically like, you know -

Therese: Take a picture.

Elizabeth: - a video conference and have like the kid open his mouth.

Therese: How'd it go? 

Elizabeth: It doesn't work so well. 

Therese: Yes. It's hard. 

Elizabeth: But it's, it was pretty hilarious in hindsight. 

Jesse: Do you require any sort of hardware, not smart hardware, but anything else, or it's pure camera? 

Therese: So this is just purely image-based disease screening and diagnostics. 

Jesse: Got it. 

Therese: Just with what you have in your pocket. 

Elizabeth: So actually let's talk tactically about this. Like take strep throat. How do you even get like a clear picture in someone's mouth? 

Therese: So that was the first thing that we solved for. In our app, we do some live image based guidance. So we have AI models that are continuously running and saying it's out of focus, move your camera. It forces the flash on so lighting is controlled for. It's constantly scanning to see if a good view of the tonsils are in focus, and if it's not, it'll keep scanning and prompting you and giving you guidance.

Elizabeth: And it's enough to capture whatever the white spots or whatever it is you're looking for.

Therese: Yeah, yeah. I had a physician assistant say, that's the best view of the throat I've ever seen.

Elizabeth: Really? Okay. 

Elizabeth: I guess, like at a higher level, how does the business model work? 

Therese: So we are starting as a B2B SAAS. So subscription model where, small to medium practice, either whether it's primary care or urgent care, $10,000 a year. That would get about 500 uses. 

Elizabeth: And, how much of this do you take care of? In other words, you help guide the parent in taking the photo. Do you also do the diagnosis of, yes, this is strep or do you send that to the providers? 

Therese: A little bit of both, but more the latter. The physician is able to look at the AI analysis, the symptoms, the image, and come to their own decision. Right now, we're starting as a screening test, and that's partly for regulatory purposes. We're not coming out of the gate saying definitively yes or no. So we're doing more risk prediction. The intention is to go through clinical trials, which we're planning for in Q4 of 25, go through FDA, and get approved as a diagnostic. 

Jesse: And so today -

Jenny: So you have to go through FDA, meaning that you're considered a medical device? 

Therese: Yeah, software as a medical device is a new ish category that the FDA is defining and looking at. 

Jenny: So does that mean the FDA is like a 510 or it's a, it's one of these lesser -

Therese: We're looking at a de novo pathway.

Jenny: A de novo pathway. Okay. So that's going to be shorter and less expensive. 

Therese: The opposite. De novo means there's no existing device that is so similar to yours that you can say, Oh, we're just like that one. Which I think also creates a competitive moat because there are no other products quite like what we're doing right now. De novos tend to be more money, take a little longer, but then also historically have better outcomes and better multiples for their investors. 

Paige: And then the reason that you're going through the FDA approval is?

Therese: Oh, good question.

Paige: Cause I'm sure that was like a decision as well.

Therese: Yes.

Paige: Because like, if you're not FDA approved, then you can like make those fast iterations. 

Therese: Yes. No, that's, that's a great question, Paige. So we're able to launch now, as a risk prediction or screening tool because we're not making a decision and we're not giving a definitive yes, no. And in doing so, we're able to launch faster and start generating revenue now. The intention to go through FDA is that gives us an extra layer of credibility because our intention is to, as we get out of these small and medium sized practices, to start moving into larger enterprise customers and bigger contracts, so like health systems and payers, and to get to that level, we are going to need to be an FDA reviewed and approved device.

Paige: Got it. So it's more like in preparing to sell to larger enterprises that's like a requirement for buying software.

Therese: Yes, it's, yeah, that's going to be the standard that they're looking at to, to integrate a tool like ours. 

Paige: Got it. 

Elizabeth: So do you have a sense, like, quantitatively how you compare to like a like an actual culture swab? 

Therese: So, the rapid swab that you traditionally do at the doctor's office, the one that comes back in 15 minutes, that's about 95 percent accurate. So it's good, but it's not perfect. And uh, the, you know, physicians are 64 percent. So we are around 88 percent right now accuracy, and we were just at like 77 percent a few months ago. So with our trajectory, we're expecting to reach low 90s accuracy in the next few months. 

Elizabeth: That's pretty good. 

Jenny: That's great. 

Jenny: Can you talk about the raise? So four million, it's a lot of money. I understand part of it goes to FDA, but can you map out where that money is going to and kinda what the metrics you hope to get to? 

Therese: Sure. So the four million, about 50 percent of that is tech and R&D. About 25 percent, percent to sales and marketing and 10 percent to FDA, clinical trials and FDA and the remainder is GNA. Our goal is to reach 10,000 patient users by the end of 2026. So we're, we're looking at about a two year runway with this. So the sales and marketing component is partly the direct to consumer. as well as continuing to expand the B2B customer base. The 10,000 users that - that as a milestone was chosen in part because we have advisors at Amazon One Medical and also Care First Blue Cross Blue Shield and feedback that they've given us is when we get into the 10,000 user range, that's when they start paying attention and looking at strategic partnerships.

Jenny: Good. And how's the fundraise going? 

Therese: We have a million soft circled, so good. 

Jenny: Are you looking for a lead investor? Or how are you putting the round together?

Therese: We would welcome a lead. 

Jenny: Gotcha

Elizabeth: Tell us a little bit about your prior raise, because it sounds like you said you've raised a fair bit with both non dilutive and dilutive funds. What was sort of that breakdown and what that looked like?

Therese: We've had a great success and a great track record with non dilutive. So, we've gotten over a million in both grants and federal contracts. Strep was the low hanging fruit, but the intention is to grow this into multiple diseases. So one of our contracts is to build out the respiratory prediction. On the non dilutive front, we're targeting at least two million in the next year And the remainder of the raise, we've had a couple of investors. So, one was Tedco, the other is, an SPV of friends, family, and angels. 

Elizabeth: Oh, okay. So, from a dilutive standpoint, you've only raised about half a million.

Therese: Correct. 

Elizabeth: And what were the terms on that? 

Therese: So it was on a note, or sorry, a safe, 6 million cap, 20 percent discount. 

Elizabeth: Hmmm

Jesse: Can you talk a little bit about the prior to FDA approval, while you're in this stage, would I be right to assume - I think you said it was like 500 patients for the 10,000 a year was sort of the current contract. So if you hit your goal, it'll be a couple hundred thousand. So how do you sort of think about that business versus post FDA approval? Does it fundamentally change? Does it get - the economics get better? Do the size - does the size get bigger? Or just how - how does this business evolve? 

Therese: So early on, these are, you know, annual contracts with the small and medium businesses. What I anticipate is as we get the first product through FDA, - and what, what we're working on in parallel, of course, is developing some of the other products, and I'll mention too, we also have proof of concept on a model that predicts urinary tract infections from a picture of a cup of urine.

Elizabeth: Oh, wow. 

Therese: Yeah, it's, it's a little bit atypical. And we have just on the proof of concept model, we have 88 percent accuracy on that. I'll just say that you cannot unsee what I have seen.

[laughter]

Therese: From data collection. But getting back to your question of like, what do things look like post FDA? So in, in parallel of, of building the strep product, we're also working on a couple of other conditions. You know, the, the respiratory R&D is underway. The UTI R&D is underway. So, what I'm anticipating is once we start going after health system customers. We expect to be a multi disease platform at that point. And so I'm expecting our contract size to be significantly greater, and our revenue streams are going to be more significantly coming from those large enterprise customers. 

Jesse: And they'd come from the health systems? Would they also come from the payers, though? Would you be able to bill through as your -

Therese: Oh, yeah, we're, we're looking at payers too.

Jesse: Yeah.

Therese: Yeah, we've had a few conversations with them. But they all kind of say the same thing. Which is, I want to see the data of how it's working in real patients.

Elizabeth: Can I ask you a very direct question? 

You most certainly can, right after the break.

Elizabeth: Can I ask you a very direct question? 

Therese: I love direct.

[Charles coughs]

Elizabeth: Why is it that you are trying to go the D2C route? Like, when you only have two B2B pilots? Like is that not working as well as you expected? Is it slow? Like what? 

Therese: Um, we're finding that even with a small to medium practices, it can sometimes take closer to six months, and back and forth and legal. Whereas with direct to consumer, like we, we have a little more control over pushing that out and generating revenue. So it's partly speed, and also data. As you probably know, with AI, the data that trains your models is gold. And so by creating this direct to consumer avenue, then patients are coming to us, and that data, we can still use that for our training models.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I get that. I think - it just feels like you are spreading your energies across, like, a couple of channels. 

Therese: I recognize that, yeah. 

Elizabeth: Typically, like, when I hear a company make that argument you just made, the framing is we're going to do D to C first. It may not be profitable on a unit economics basis or whatever, but we're going to get all the data we need. We can control the speed and all this stuff. And then we can take that and go sell to these bigger orgs. 

Therese: That's more or less what we're doing. So we had started off with the intention to be a B2B company. But what I found in the last like six to nine months is that the sales cycles are slower than I thought they would be. And my ability as a salesperson, it's, you know, there's definitely refinement that needs to happen there and efficiencies. And so it's a little bit more of a, let's focus on D2C. 

Jenny: I think that's just healthcare. That's not you. 

Elizabeth: Yeah, I mean -

[crosstalk]

Elizabeth: - lifecycles are just long.

Jenny: This is not going to change.

Therese: Yeah. That's true. And so my intention is to focus on DTC for the next six months or so and just get some DTC data and users.

Elizabeth: And so what level of data do you anticipate trying to get in the next, call it six months? 

Therese: Um, it's, it's hard to say because I don't know what will happen with this direct to consumer launch. There's a lot of hypotheses. 

Elizabeth: You can always milk it, right? Like, it may not be profitable, but you can always buy ads up the wazoo and get your patients in the door. So if the priority is we're going to go and get, whatever, 10,000 people, you can do it. Right? Who knows how much money it costs, but you can, you can do it. So I guess my question is like, how do you think about, I'm just trying to understand the roadmap. and I think I'm still kind of scratching my head around where you get to with six million dollars. Because it sounds like - it sounds like you're still going to be at a very beginning stage with six million dollars in how you describe it. Like this - and maybe I'm missing something. 

Therese: Yeah, let me clarify and hopefully this gives some clarity. So we are targeting a 4 million raise. Should we get the grants that we're targeting, that would be wonderful, because then that's extra capital that we can leverage and then we're able to build other product lines faster. So, that's how we would use the four plus two. The four is for building direct to consumer early, transitioning to B2B. And with those combined, reaching 10,000 patients by the end of 26. As well as clinical trials and FDA. 

Paige: Where does the 10,000 patients get you revenue wise? Is there, like, a number tied to that? 

Therese: Yes, it's around 6 million total. 

Paige: Total. 

Therese: Oh, sorry. Yes. Yes. Six million total by the end of 26. 

Jesse: Help me understand how 10,000 patients would be $6 million. Because my math would be a lot less than that. 

Therese: So, let's see. We are, um - a portion of that is going to be from, uh, the direct to consumer components. We're working on pricing on that because I don't know yet, you know, like, we're gonna be experimenting a bit with, like, I'll, I'll know in a few weeks, uh, I'll be able to give you some more data on that.

Jesse: But do you think it's like $500 a test? Or it's - I assume it's closer to like 100, which is what you're charging your clinics.

Therese: Correct. 

Jesse: Okay. Okay. If I did my math right, you're charging your clinics roughly $100 a test, at 10,000 a year, 500 tests, I think you said 

Therese: Right. 

Jesse: Okay. And so, if we take $100 a test times 10,000 tests, that wouldn't get me to 6 million.

Elizabeth: That's 1 million. Not six. 

Jesse: That's one million.

Therese: Yes. Well, that's - it's a combination of that and we would expect at least 30 to 40 B2B customers, like annual subscribing customers at that point. 

Elizabeth: So you would be working on that in parallel?

Therese: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The intention is direct to consumer for the relatively short period. Around six months from now, so like Q3 of 25, we start pouring efforts back into the B2B component and slowly build up that urgent care and small to medium practice customer base. 

Paige: I mean, to ask the direct question, like, it sounds like there's a bit of hesitation on committing to B2B or committing to direct to consumer. They're, like, dramatically different long term decisions you'll need to make for either one. So I would say, like, is this something that you're still trying to figure out internally? Or do you feel like after the six months you're like, okay, now we're, like, done with direct to consumer. That was just to gather data and we want to go full B2B.

Therese: More the latter. What I know will end up being a better business long term is being a, a B2B business. 

Paige: So, like, of the 8,000 urgent cares, how many would you say are, like, in your top of funnel that you've reached out to or talked to so far? And then how many are in discussion stage? 

Therese: I - so this is where, you know, we've had some transition in strategy with this direct to consumer component. In the last few months, I've started, you know, I'm probably in discussions with at least a dozen of them. But I haven't been pushing the close. In part because what I'm hearing from them too is, I want to see how this is working in real life, in real patients. Which is again part of the direct to consumer component, to be able to say, oh, here's an example of how it worked. Here's how it impacted this family. Here's what it did for antibiotic prescribing. 

Jenny: So I think for myself, I mean, you're incredibly impressive. I love your background and you have just like hustled, you know, the hell out of this business to get where you are. So like, I love that. I think with multiple business models, a $4 million raise, which is, you know, quite high for me as a pre-seed and the FDA path, I think that's going to be just a complicated one for me to get my head around. So I think I'm out. That said, if things change, which they often do, and you guys decide, you know, to kind of pick a lane for now and potentially do a smaller raise, then I'd love to stay in touch. 

Therese: That sounds great, Jenny. And you know, on the topic of a smaller raise, we may have some flexibility in how much we're raising and, you know, in part because some of our raise could be offset by, by non dilutive

Jenny: Which is great. 

Charles: I'd just say like we've done a bunch of FDA things - always takes longer, always costs more money. $4 million is not a, is not a lot in the context of every company we've done that's had to go through meaningful FDA. I assume a hardware company takes seven to $10 million to get the thing done. So this is in spec - I just think you're putting a lot of pressure on the company to finish the product, test out D2C, test out B to B, get the FDA thing done, - it's - I almost want you to do less. I think if you had said, we're not entirely sure which business model we're gonna pursue, that will become clear as we continue to have conversations, I think this conversation would have served you better. I think the truth is, it's hard. It's hard to know. 

Therese: That is true. 

Charles: So I'm not in now given the current state of the product and the tech. 

Elizabeth: I agree with Charles. I don't think that, for getting FDA approvals, this is a lot of money. I guess partly why I asked that question is it's sort of self serving. We're pre seed investors. We tend to prefer lower valuations. I would say, though, like, echoing all these points, you are doing a lot, and I just know how hard it is to even do one thing as like a founding team. And I think you have to kind of do one thing at a time. It's really hard to do many things all at once well. What I would have liked to have heard is, okay, we're gonna test B2B. Instead of talking with a dozen people, we're gonna, you know, hit the phones and talk with a hundred people, or whatever it is, and then, we get the feedback that we want. It sounds like you kind of already know from 12, but probably would have liked to have seen more prospecting there to really know, okay, they are not going to sign up for this right now. We are going to park that. Now we're going to go and do only DTC, test that, and then maybe park that, like do things sort of sequentially, rather than trying to do everything in parallel half baked. I'm not actually sure I'm on board with doing the FDA trials on this raise. Because it sounds like you can still get the outcomes you're looking for by basically providing insights to physicians and partnering with them. Maybe you make less money and you own less of the stack, whatever it is, but it sounds like you can get a sale done and I would probably try to focus on: the problem we're trying to solve right now is, how do we make sure we have something accurate? And how do we make sure that people are using this and that there's some form of payment? That's the thing I would solve for. And then maybe later you start to figure out how can I own more of that stack by getting the FDA trials? But I think echoing all these points, it's like too much, all in parallel, in one raise. So I'm out. You're super impressive and I really want this to exist. 

Therese: It will be available in a few weeks. So I will let you know when it is. Thank you. Thank you for that feedback. 

Jesse: There are parts of your pitch I really like, and there are parts that either I don't understand or I don't believe. For me, I - I think there's a business to be built. I think there's actually a good business at each step here. And I worry that you're sort of talking yourself into a, like, I need to do these things together because they create value. But I think you actually have enough - you know this customer so well, you've lived it, that I'm not sure you need to prove that. I think you have the answer. It's like, you need the 10,000 patients or whatever the number is, and as soon as you do that, you have enough stories, enough data, and then you can unlock FDA approval after that. That's sort of my sensitivity. There was a company on, on the show last season that I invested in called Vital Audio that was going through a similar journey. They take your vital signs out of your voice only, so it's software, and they've sort of gone on the same journey. At one point, he was talking about, like, I got to sell both the doctors and the practices and the health systems and the 911 operators and the consumer. And I think he just found that he knows enough to be able to know the order of operations now. And if you do know it, which I think you do, you can get away with raising less capital, diluting less, but also frankly, moving faster. You're at an earlier stage than maybe the raise would let on in, in my mind. And so I just think that if it changed, we may be interested, but, but in the current raise, it's, it's probably not a fit for us.

Therese: Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks for that feedback. 

Paige: I am not sure I'm gonna add anything novel. I think everyone made a lot of great points here. The thing I think about as like an engineer is it's like way easier to do a math problem if you constrain the variables, and it seems like you know so much about the space that you're adding like all these different variables. And if the raise was like a small amount and you're just looking to get the 10,000 direct to consumer folks and then like reevaluate another raise after that based on your learnings and whether you want to, like, which business model you want to pursue, that feels like a much better fit for our fund. If that's something that you are open to considering, I think we should continue the conversation. But the $4 million raise with many variables is less of a fit for us. 

Therese: Great. Thank you for that feedback. What I'm hearing is, not yet, hang on, let's keep in touch. 

Elizabeth: I think if I succinctly recap what everyone said, it's different plan, smaller raise. 

Therese: I can work with that. Thank you.

Elizabeth: So. 

[thank yous and start of applause]

Josh: Therese. Before you - sorry. Oh. Sorry to interrupt the clap. Um, are you open to raising less? 

Therese: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, since Josh asked - 

Hey, that’s me! Interrupting the pitch again… Speaking of interruptions, we’ll be right back.

Josh: Are you open to raising less? 

Therese: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, since Josh asked, yeah, if we were to do something on the order of two million, would that sound more, like, in range? And then what we would accomplish there is just, just sales. And we leave R&D stuff for federal grant funding. 

Paige: Wait I - If this is the raise you want to do, don't change your mind at this table because you're being asked to. 

Elizabeth: I disagree with that. 

Therese: I'm not at all -

[agreement/disagreement noises]

Elizabeth: I vehemently disagree with that. I think every founder should come in with multiple plans. 

Jenny: Yeah, for sure. 

Elizabeth: What happens if you can't - if you can -

Charles: I disagree with that. 

Jesse: I, so I, I - 

Charles: I think that's -

Jesse: And I agree with Charles.

Elizabeth: No. I don't think you necessarily present all, you know, several plans, but you should have like a plan in mind for if you, if you cannot raise X, you should be able to do something with Y. 

Jesse: So, so I agree with that.

Jenny: I 100 percent agree with that. 

Jesse: So, so I agree with that. My only point -

Elizabeth: If the company's underwater because you can't raise X, that's a problem.

Jesse: My, my only point was I, We did not talk about that plan like much, right? So the plan that you presented was these multiple models at the same time, whatever. So I feel like it would require a longer conversation. You're like, yes, I have an idea for that. Let's talk about it. As opposed to like -

Jenny: I don't think you need to decide today. 

[yeahs]

Charles: I don't like asking someone to reforecast on the spot. 

Jesse: Yeah, that was. 

Elizabeth: Oh yeah, I'm not suggesting that. 

Jenny: So just some things to think about. Not for us to project, though. 

Therese: Yes. Thank you. Okay. Well, let's continue the conversation. Thank you. 

Jesse: Thank you.

[thank yous and applause] 

Jesse: Come on over, Josh. You can do it. 

Josh: Thinking of another deal we did last season, Charles, was Dopl. 

Charles: It's going to take him a lot of money. I have no illusions. Ryan has, Ryan and I maybe are not still on the same page about how much money it's going to take, but neither one of us thinks it's going to be cheap. 

Josh: Yeah

Jesse: Yeah, we, we have multiple companies that have gone through FDA in the last five years. We have multiple that have gone the grant route. And I agree. It's a great thing if you can make it fit. The biggest mistake we've seen founders do is take grants that don't fit in their existing plan. Like, it's like, create the plan then if there happens to be a grant that fits, great. But like, that's not always the case. You kind of have to squint and like, you know, maybe it's a slightly different disease that the grant helps her. And it's like, that wasn't your plan. But I -

Jenny: But I just think there's a way of her positioning this because she's in - most companies that have to go through FDA don't have a plan of not going through FDA. And so she's in a really strong position to say like, I have a business here. Oh. And I can make my business even bigger down the road when we get there. But she, it was kind of like, she reversed the order and that confused us. And then it con - you know, the story got -

Elizabeth: Too many things are happening. 

Jenny: Too many things. But like, she is in a great position. 

Jesse: The financial part. I - she needs to button up. Cause I, my math is she'll make $500,000 a year in the next two years, not six million. I'm not sure in any way you get to six million in what she presented here. So.

Paige: That was - that was with like 30 to 40 b2b customers. 

Jesse: Like, that's just straight math.

Jenny: Yeah, she didn't have all our numbers. 

Jesse: So I just - but part of that is why I was hesitant, say, to come up with a new plan here, because I think there's some underneath that, like, what is the consumer business? Like, 10,000 tests for people who might have strep seems like a really tiny number. If you just did the consumer thing for the next couple of years. I do think there is a plan to be made in that. And, and yeah, most companies that need to go through FDA, I agree, they don't have a business unless they get through it. 

Jenny: Yes. This is pretty cool. 

Jesse: And these - she does.

Jenny: Yeah. 

Josh: Stepping back for just a second. Like how much of this do you see a founder and you're like, wow, this is incredible. I can coach them into - cause like, I think you can be inherently good at building product, inherently good at understanding your market, but like fundraising is an entirely separate skill. How do you think about like coaching a founder like that? Like, messaging and fundraising perspective, like, what would you have wanted to hear? 

Charles: There's a difference between coaching someone on how to pitch and the content of the pitch. 

Jesse: Yeah.

Charles: I think what you heard from us was not - I think most of us were like, there's some stylistic things that maybe we would critique her on. Most of the questions here were actually the substance of the pitch. 

Elizabeth: About the plan. 

Paige: About the fundamentals.

Charles: About the plan. And I think there's a difference between teaching people, hey, here's how you respond to a VC asking you if you would raise this money. Here's how you answer these questions versus - the content of what you pitch, I find it's harder to coach people on that. Because that's their belief about what they're going to do. I assume if I give you a dollar, you're going to do with it what you already think is the best. You're not going to actually -

Jenny: Ask me.

Charles: Ask me. I'm going to give you the money and you're going to go do the thing. So it's really important that I have a high degree of confidence that the thing you're going to do is generally the direction I think you should go. You can coach people on presentation, on answering questions. I think it's hard to coach people on like, the thing they want to build. I think she came in here and told us that because that's what she thinks she would do if we gave her $4 million. I believe she would do all of those things. 

Jesse: I don't think the takeaway should have been, you need to raise less money because we write smaller checks.

Elizabeth: Yeah, no, it's not about the round, it's about the plan. 

Jesse: The takeaway was, there's a different plan entirely than what she presented. So it's a different order potentially. It's a different size and scale. It's a different business model potentially. Look, there's a bunch of things that may change in what she presented. What she presented was 10,000 patients across consumer and B2B. We collectively are like, that's wrong. So let's start there. Like you should do one or the other. How you get 10,000 consumers is very different than B2B. We didn't even get into like what her breakdown was. 

Elizabeth: Trying to do both consumer and B2B at the same time is really, really hard with a small team. I've tried it. It's hard. 

Jesse: I will give you - we, I invested in Vital Audio because of the show and I will tell you that he is dead set on going B2B and I would love for him to offer a consumer version of this product and he just really doesn't want to do it. And I am okay with that because I’m trusting his judgment. But I know that's where he's going and so I may or may not invest more capital in that business because we agree or disagree, but like I know where he wants to go and if I asked him tomorrow like, yeah, but if I invest will you do consumer and he said yep. I'd be like, okay, I'm actually - I don't want to invest anymore.

[laughter]

Jesse: Never mind. I'll do consumer even though [coughing] I won't do consumer. 

Jenny: Frickin’ VCs. 

Jesse: Like I have asked him for a consumer version just to demo it even. And he's like, it's really not something for consumers. And he may be right. And I've invested in him and I'm on that journey with him. But like, my issue is not what he's raising or what he's, you know, it's, that's his plan. I can agree or disagree, and I think that's what we're hearing here. That was her plan and we disagree with that plan. We could talk more. 

Jenny: I also think we weren't convinced by the why. So we pushed her a few times, so why are you doing it these ways, and she kind of didn't give me a convincing answer. It was just like, we've thought about it and this is the best way to accumulate the data. And I think we all just don't believe that. 

Elizabeth: Like, there have also definitely been founders whom I've been impressed by and have disagreed with their plan but I still have conviction that they know better than I. But I felt like, to Jenny's point, I didn't understand kind of where some of these ideas were coming from and didn't agree. 

Jenny: I also think like she's not talking to enough healthcare founders because she's like, yeah, these, these deals can take six months. I'm like, that's health care, and that's not bad. So like, you're just going to have to -

Josh: She's taking that as a negative signal, and it's not.

Jenny: Yeah, toughen up there lady that's health care. I mean, it can take a very long time. 

Josh: All right. 

Jesse: Cool. 

Josh: Great pitch. Great feedback. 

Jenny: We're just not spending much money though, guys. Like I've come all the way to Florida. I want to spend some cash.

Jesse: We could at least do the next pitch in the sun.

Josh: We got two more. 

Therese walked out of the pitch room without a commitment, but she sure got a healthy dose of VC feedback.

We caught up with Therese a few months after the pitch, and we found out that her plan, remains relatively unchanged. She’s raising $3.5M now instead of $4M, and she launched the CurieDx app to the public. One of the very first users was actually Therese.

Therese: My older daughter, she'd been saying she had a headache for a couple days, and then she started saying like, Hmm, I don't feel good. And I was like, ahhh. I think you have strep. Hang on! 

Josh: So you got excited?

Therese: Yeah. And so like I whipped out my app and like, it was this amazing full circle moment of like - 

Josh: Did she have strep? 

Therese: Yeah, she did. She did. I validated it too with um, 'cause I have a home strep kit, which - 

Josh: Yeah, of course you do.

Therese: And so yeah, I swabbed her too and confirmed it was positive and it was like, oh, I'm sorry you're sick, but thank you. 

Josh: But thank you. This was great for the business. 

We’ll let you know in the season finale if Therese is able to close her round. If you want to watch the finale live on YouTube with other fans of the show, RSVP at pitch.show/party. I’ll be in the chat!

No offer to invest in CurieDx is being made to the listening audience on today’s show. But you can join our private investor community on Substack. Where you’ll get access to the deals we’re doing behind the scenes.

So, if you’re an accredited investor, you can apply to join at thepitch.fund

Next week on The Pitch…

Al: We have a trillion dollar labor shortage across frontline industries in the country right now. In hospitality alone, there's 248,000 job openings. To tackle this, hotels are spending money on software at a record pace. That's why we're building Levee. We're building AI agents for frontline hospitality work. 

Jenny: Do you ever get pushback from the users? do they feel like they're being tracked in some way that makes them uncomfortable?

Al: The very, very, very first piece of feedback that we got from a housekeeper was, does this mean I'm not going to get yelled at anymore? And that was one of those moments where you’re like, damn, I think we got it. 

Elizabeth: Oh cool. I really like your background. Like, I like sales go getter types. 

Josh: At what price would you be interested? 

Elizabeth: I don't want to insult you, but I think -

That’s next week! Season 13 is available to watch on YouTube and Patreon, OR listen on your favorite podcast player.

Applications are open for season 14 of The Pitch! So if you’re raising capital for your startup, or plan to raise in the fall, you can apply to pitch. No deck required, just fill out our quick form at pitch.show/apply

We’ll see you next Wednesday, in the PITCH ROOM.

This episode was made by me, Josh Muccio, Lisa Muccio, Anna Ladd, Enoch Kim, and Jackie Papanier. With deal sourcing by Peter Liu, John Alvarez, and Phoebe Sun.

Music in this episode is by The Muse Maker, Breakmaster Cylinder, Desjardins, Boxwood Orchestra, Cafe Nostro, Skittle, Jonathan Haidle, Peter Jean and The Runaway Queen.

The Pitch is made in partnership with the Vox Media Podcast Network.