matt ocko
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Matt Ocko saw COVID-19 coming: Here’s what his venture firm is doing about it
Matt Ocko, co-founder of venture firm Data Collective (DCVC), was among a small group of VCs viewed as alarmists when they began tweeting about the coronavirus’s imminent appearance in the U.S. back in January.
In retrospect, those individuals were prescient, so we spoke with Ocko last week about why he was so certain the U.S. was about to get walloped by COVID-19, and asked how some of the startups in DCVC’s portfolio — which has long had a strong biotech focus — are trying to get us back to a state of normalcy.
This conversation has been edited for length.
TechCrunch: You were tweeting about COVID-19 back in January; I almost canceled a flight out of San Francisco because of your [expressed concern about a flight bound for SFO from Wuhan, China]. What did you see that the rest of us missed?
Matt Ocko: My family has been working with the Chinese government at a reasonably high level since the late 1970s, starting with my dad, and I kind of grew up in that environment. And at a relatively young age, as a professional [in the 1990s], I started pro bono helping my dad, who’s a Chinese legal expert, on things like constructing the laws around China’s Nasdaq equivalent, its stock markets, the joint dollar-renminbi investment legislation, advice on technology development and venture capital development.
I’m not an anti-China hawk by any means. But I do have an understanding of some of the idiosyncrasies of Chinese culture reflected in its government, the same way every country has its idiosyncrasies.
[In China’s case], it’s a focus on face and reputation and extreme sensitivity to negative perception or shame or humiliation at every level of government and culture. And so there’s [an] unfortunate trend — and not a universal one — for people to manage upwards, especially in the government, and tell their higher-ups what they want to hear to avoid shame, to avoid the loss of reputation and to kick the can down the road or hope that circumstances on the ground change favorably in the face of denial or equivocation.
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What tech gets right about healthcare
Why is tech still aiming for the healthcare industry? It seems full of endless regulatory hurdles or stories of misguided founders with no knowledge of the space, running headlong into it, only to fall on their faces.
Theranos is a prime example of a founder with zero health background or understanding of the industry — and just look what happened there! The company folded not long after founder Elizabeth Holmes came under criminal investigation and was barred from operating in her own labs for carelessly handling sensitive health data and test results.
But sometimes tech figures it out. It took years for 23andMe to breakthrough FDA regulations — it’s since more than tripled its business and moved into drug discovery.
And then there’s Oscar Health, which first made a mint on Obamacare and has since ventured into Medicare. Combined with Bright, the two health insurance startups have pulled in a whopping $3 billion so far.
It’s easy to shake our fists at fool-hardy founders hoping to cash in on an industry that cannot rely on the old motto “move fast and break things.” But it doesn’t have to be the code tech lives or dies by.
So which startups have the mojo to keep at it and rise to the top? Venture capitalists often get to see a lot before deciding to invest. So we asked a few of our favorite health VC’s to share their insights.
Phin Barnes – First Round Capital
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Space investors are coming to Disrupt SF 2018
In the past couple of decades, Elon Musk’s efforts with SpaceX have partially kicked off a space race in the VC-funded rocket startup scene. At Disrupt SF 2018, we’re thrilled to host a panel of some of Silicon Valley’s top investors whose firms are eyeing the stars.
Rob Coneybeer from Shasta Ventures, Tess Hatch from Bessemer Venture Partners and Matt Ocko from DCVC will all be joining us to discuss their points of view on the commercial space industry and where the major opportunities lie for startups looking to penetrate the market.
We’ll hopefully get a closer look at some of the dominating trends in the industry from the trio whose careers have taken them through legacy space companies and led them to make several investments in young space startups.
Rob Coneybeer is a managing director at Shasta Ventures, a firm he co-founded back in 2004. He has a masters in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and worked as an engineer in Martin Marietta’s Astro Space division earlier in his career. Coneybeer has directed a number of investments in the space sector, including Accion Systems, Spire and Vector.
Tess Hatch is an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners. Hatch has a masters in aeronautical engineering from Stanford and has had stints at NASA, SpaceX, Northrup Grumman and Boeing previous to joining Bessemer. She’s currently the board observer for a number of the firm’s investments, including Spire and Rocket Lab.
Matt Ocko co-founded DCVC seven years ago and has continued to serve as the firm’s co-managing director. Ocko has several decades of experience as an investor and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Since its co-founding, DCVC has made investments in Akash Systems, Capella Space, Descartes Labs, Planet and Rocket Lab.
We’ll be dialing into the attitudes among investors regarding the competitive arena and we’ll be looking for insights into how the esteemed group sees the industry transforming in the next decade.
Disrupt SF will take place in San Francisco’s Moscone Center West from September 5-7. The full agenda is here, and you can still buy tickets right here.
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Fortem raises $5.5 million to hunt and take down unwanted drones
After drones became available to private citizens around the world, bad actors found ways to use them for nefarious purposes like spying on corporations, carrying contraband across borders and into prison yards, and sadly, turning the aerial robots into weapons. Drone crashes also put people and property in harm’s way. Provo, Utah-based Fortem Technologies Inc. has raised $5.5 million in… Read More
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