Though the pandemic has fueled telehealth adoption among doctors and hospitals, one local digital health care startup is making its first foray into the world of in-person care.
Kiira Health, a Los Angeles-based women’s telehealth platform, announced on Friday that it is opening its first brick-and-mortar clinic in June in the Melrose section of West Hollywood. Founded in 2018 as a virtual health care service for college students, the company has expanded to 45 states during the pandemic, as COVID-19 kept students off of campuses and unable to receive in-person care from university health care providers.
“It's not [about] one versus the other, like telemedicine versus in-person [care]; I think it is about collaboration,” Crystal Adesanya, Kiira Health’s founder and CEO, told dot.LA. “I think it's about multiple choices, multiple methods of delivering care [and] how people want to receive it.”
Demand for telehealth services has risen sharply during the pandemic, with remote health care allowing providers and insurers to reduce costs and increase access (for some, at least). Still, in-person care continues to be necessary for certain check-ups and procedures.
“Telehealth might be an appropriate clinical tool for some clinical scenarios, [but] it might not be for others,” according to Dr. Alejandra Casillas, an assistant professor of medicine in residence at UCLA. “I don't think we put all our eggs in one basket like [telehealth is] the end-all, be-all.”
Adesanya’s idea for Kiira Health was influenced by her experiences after moving from Nigeria to the U.S. for college in 2009. She found herself having to navigate a foreign and complex health care system, eventually relying on Google searches and self-medication to treat an abdominal issue she was having. She quickly ended up in the hospital needing emergency surgery.
“College is really a pivotal point in the young person's life,” Adesanya recalled. “For me, that was the time when I was being sexually active, being away from home for the first time, exploring new things [and] navigating health care.”
Kiira’s in-person clinic in Melrose.Photo courtesy of Kiira Health
Kiira’s Melrose clinic will administer primary care, gynecology and mental health services. According to the company, 85% of its staff are Black or brown; Adesanya said the goal is to employ clinicians that are “culturally competent” and have an understanding of their patients’ lifestyles, diets and the viewpoints that shape their care.
“It [is] very common among young people not feeling comfortable in their health care—especially people of color not seeing providers who represent them and can deliver care,” she noted.
The startup raised $4 million in seed funding in December led by Forum Ventures and 500 Global. Kiira is supplementing its Melrose location with a mobile health clinic that will travel to neighborhoods with little access to transportation or health care, with the goal of treating patients as early as possible.
“How can you introduce positive health experiences to young people and young women to help with making them feel comfortable seeking care?” Adesanya asked. “The idea is that you can work with them for the rest of their life cycles and improve their outcomes and reduce maternal mortality and things like that. These are things that women of color face later in life.”
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While discussing the venture capital world, and his upcoming technology conference in Santa Monica, The Montgomery Summit 2022, March Capital co-founder and Managing Partner Jamie Montgomery doesn’t necessarily contradict this formula for success, but adds a new attribute to the mix that’s sometimes left out: curiosity.
Montgomery’s a believer that there’s no one right way to go about things, and no surefire process for success. Sometimes, the best company emerges from not just the best data and team but the most creative approach. “If something isn’t clear, invert,” Montgomery explained. “Then invert again. Soon the subject becomes clear.”
The best investors and leaders have an innate inquisitiveness about the world around them, and seek out opportunities not just based on market trends but genuine observations about problems in desperate need of solutions.
“You sort of have to be a very heuristical thinker,” Montgomery said. “Sometimes I find some people I talk to are very smart and interesting, and I think, “That person’s very thoughtful. They’re going to be a good investor.’ Sometimes you meet people and you think ‘Well, they come across smart, but they’re always preparing what they’re going to say in response to what you have to say, they’re not really listening.’ Being a good investor, you’ve got to be a good listener. You’ve got to figure out, what’s the signal and what’s the noise? Filter out the noise and say ‘What’s real?’”
Thoughtfulness, attentiveness and curiosity are typically the sort of attributes that we think of as innate, as opposed to skills you can improve via on-the-job training. Montgomery noted, “I always ask entrepreneurs why rather than what. You get a more interesting answer.” Reading and research and investigation can help, but innate curiosity remains an essential ingredient in business success.
“I think, to be an investor, not just a VC but an overall investor, one benefits from an incredible amount of reading and knowledge,” Montgomery explained. “You have to have a voracious appetite, so it’s really a high-level curiosity. Some people have it, some don’t.”
One subject that’s on Montgomery’s mind these days is quantum computing, and its potential impact on cybersecurity, a major area of focus for March. His process starts by asking core questions about the next 5-10 years and what they’ll look like, before even considering potential solutions.
“If you’re investing, you have to look at something that’s inevitable,” Montgomery explained. “Is it gonna happen or not. If it’s inevitable, then the question is, is it imminent? And is it investible? Start with inevitable. Eventually you’re going to have quantum computing, and that’s gonna create an existential threat to cybersecurity. Is that imminent?... What is the post-quantum cyber world like, with all this information that’s been siphoned out of America by China… what do they have and how do we prepare for a post-quantum cybersecurity? It’s almost existential.”
This holistic question-based approach also drives Montgomery as he plans and organizes the annual Montgomery Summit, the largest such event of the L.A. tech calendar year (Montgomery refers to it as the “Rose Bowl of Conferences.”)
He expects around 1,200 people to attend this year – the event’s big return post-pandemic – for panels and sessions that don’t just cover areas in which March Capital specializes, but a vast and diverse variety of subjects and topics, designed to intrigue and inspire curious minds.
Over 175 speakers in total have signed on for the 19th annual Montgomery Summit, to be held on May 24 and 25, from the worlds of technology, economics, geopolitics, public policy, the sciences and beyond. Montgomery gets animated as he tells me about the voluminous range of topics being covered, from the Federal Reserve’s response to inflation to the war in Ukraine to the stories behind companies like Bill.com and CrowdStrike. One session will feature Chapman University Presidential Fellow Jack Horner, one of the world’s leading paleontologists and a key inspiration for the “Jurassic Park” character Dr. Alan Grant.
“It’s the interaction, the entrepreneurs with the investors and the executives,” Montgomery told me. “It’s fantastic, it’s enjoyable, it’s fun, and it’s candid. There are no big egos. The speakers will actually come and talk to you, they don’t come in the back door and leave through the back door. You actually can go to any one of seven sessions, and it’s going to be interesting, and they’re all short. 25-45 minutes each.”
The shorter 25-45 minute sessions help to stave off boredom and mean that attendees can sample a wider range of subjects and sessions than they might at other conferences. It helps keep things moving and makes them fun, a theme Montgomery returned to a few times in our discussion.
“There’s a lot of conferences that are very professionally run or research-driven or they’re very commercial. People come here and they’re gonna have a blast, right?”
The Montgomery Summit runs May 24th-25th at Santa Monica's Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows. Find out more information on their website.
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