Jason Shuman

🏴‍☠️ Introducing Black Flag: The Accelerator for Founders Building America's Critical Technologies Today, we're excited to launch Black Flag — a new accelerator from Harpoon Ventures, in collaboration with Shield Capital and IQT (In-Q-Tel).​ Black Flag is for the most ambitious founders, those engineering the technologies that will define America’s future in an increasingly contested world. Space. Defense. Energy. Manufacturing. Biotech. Autonomy. If your work has national significance, you belong here. ​ Here’s what Black Flag offers: 💰 $250K–$1M in funding 🤝 Mentorship from operators and technical leaders at Astranis Space Technologies, Solugen, Kodiak, and more 🎯 Guidance on securing strategic, non-dilutive government funding 🛠️ Support with design, branding, website, and pitching 📡 Access to a network that spans top-tier deep tech VC funds, defense customers, and national security decision-makers Black Flag operates on a rolling basis, with batches selected monthly. We're ready when you are. If you're building  technologies that shape the balance of power — where the technical challenge is hard, the mission is urgent, and the stakes are national — we want to hear from you. 👉 Learn more and apply: https://www.blackflag.vc

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I’m thrilled to announce defy.vc’s investment in Birches Health as part of their $20M combined Seed and Series A funding round, alongside incredible partners like AlleyCorp, General Catalyst, Will Ventures, and others. As someone deeply passionate about backing companies that tackle important problems for our society, I couldn’t be more excited about what Birches is building—a national virtual clinic dedicated to treating gambling addiction and related behavioral disorders like gaming, sex, porn, and internet addictions. What excites me most is Birches’ innovative health assurance model: proactive, accessible, and affordable care that’s evidence-based and delivered right at home. With the explosion of legal sports betting—think nearly $1.5 billion wagered on this year’s Super Bowl alone—we’re staring down a looming public health emergency. Traditional options like hotlines or generic therapy fall short for this high-acuity issue, but Birches changes that by offering specialized therapy from trained clinicians, multimodal treatment, and peer support, all covered by major insurers like United Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. It’s available in all 50 states, breaking down geographical and financial barriers that have left so many without help. The impact is already profound: 96% of patients report an improved quality of life, and 94% give Birches a 5/5 rating. By partnering with state governments, payors, and policymakers, Birches is pushing gambling addiction into the spotlight of behavioral health conversations, where it’s been neglected for too long—often leading to shame, worsened outcomes, and higher suicidality risks. This funding will supercharge their growth: expanding the provider network, boosting clinical excellence, scaling infrastructure, and deepening insurance and state partnerships to meet surging demand. Very excited to partner with Elliott Rapaport and the entire Birches team! See more about our POV in the blog post linked in the comments. #GamblingAddiction #BehavioralHealth #HealthTech #VentureCapital #Innovation

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An often overlooked truth in venture: founder health is company health. In our latest Warrior Guide, we partnered with Noah Shanok, founder and first CEO of Stitcher (acquired by SiriusXM), early StubHub exec (acquired by eBay), and Benchmark & NEA-backed entrepreneur, to share the parts of founder life we should talk about more. This guide isn’t a checklist. It’s lived experience, and it's brutal, honest, and practical. From near-burnout during a Series A raise to the daily work of recovering clarity, Noah shared strategies that go deeper than platitudes: 🫂 Building a trusted peer support circle ⏰ Creating routines that actually work in startup life 🧠 Recognizing when to ask for help (and why it’s a strength, not a weakness) If you’re leading a company and finding it harder to lead yourself some days, you’re not alone. This one’s for you! Read the full warrior guide at the link in the comments. Founders- what are the mental resilience habits you’ve built into your journey? We'd love to hear from you.

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🧬 This week’s Austin Bio & Health Roundup has funding, recognition, regional momentum, & new PitchBook healthtech data giving us a peek under the hood of the sector. 🧬 💰 Funding & Capital Signals Hello Patient, a conversational AI platform for clinics, closed a $22.5M Series A led by Scale Venture Partners and included participation from Austin-based 8VC, who also joined their seed round. You need to check out their announcement video. Alex is in top form! 🚀 Launches, Expansions, Milestones, and Wins A second piece of Hello Patient news. They launched their platform into veterinary practices as well. 📊 Data PitchBook published an Emerging Tech Research report on Healthtech VC Trends. In 1H 2025, healthtech startups raised $8B, putting it on pace to beat 2023 and 2024 and possibly 2022. Exits are at $4.9B, suggesting this could be the highest year since 2021. Top 5 subsectors over the last 12 months: • Telehealth: $3.2B over 174 deals • EHRs & Clinical Information and Analytics: $2.2B over 76 deals • Care Management: $2.2B over 113 deals • Operations: $1.7B over 84 deals • Analytics: $1.4B over 104 deals 🏆 Recognition Phantom Neuro featured in "25 Healthcare Devices I Fell in Love With" on David Shulkin’s blog. Shulkin is the former U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs. 🤠 Texas Bio Triangle Houston: The Rice Biotech Launch Pad announced another investment, this time from Houston-based Carnrite Ventures. Houston funding Houston! What’s Next? 🤠 🚀 🦾 🧬

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I spoke with Christien Louviere of BDE Capital about his journey from a $330mm exit to becoming an independent sponsor. Christien shared excellent insights for folks looking to partner with business owners, rather than buy sellers out completely. Below are a few of the topics we covered: - Why he moved from “zero-to-one” startups to a buy-then-build strategy - How Christien's background shaped a focus on growth vs. cost-cutting - Why 20–40% rolled equity is central to his deal structures—and how it builds trust with sellers - Using scenario analysis with AI tools to evaluate management teams and uncover hidden key-person risks - How to identify when a $3–5M EBITDA company truly has a middle management layer—or is still founder-reliant For anyone investing in or buying small businesses, Christien’s approach provides a fresh lens on growth, alignment, and deal structuring. 🎥 Watch the full interview here → https://lnkd.in/ekfkaiej 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/e86Agx6V

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SF is eating healthtech. Historically centered in Boston, AI is making the Tech side more important than health industry connections, so now the majority of health unicorn founders come from SF and NYC. We shared SignalFire's data with Fierce Healthcare to author this report on what founder skills and experiences are minting healthtech unicorns. Full report in the comments

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