Excited to announce investment in the $18M series B of Sami Saúde alongside Redpoint eVentures, Monashees and Valor. Sami is focused on providing better healthcare insurance, starting with Brazil. Tau Ventures is an AI-first fund in Silicon Valley investing primarily in seed and US but we occasionally take later bets and/or in countries we know very well, when we see immense promise. The company was founded in 2018 and impressed us with (1) a strong need, (2) building an execution-focused team, and (3) creating a differentiated product.
1) The Need
Brazil has 217M people, making it the (7th largest population in the world and 2nd largest in the Western Hemisphere. It also spends 10% of its GDP in healthcare, which is in line with a middle-income country. It also boasts of the largest single-payor system in the world covering all Brazilians. But there are vast disparities in healthcare access and expenditure. In fact, on several metrics, only 20% of the population has access to quality healthcare. And in the last 5 years the country also saw the steepest drop in GDP in a century and the second highest death rate globally from covid, which has strained both its public and private healthcare. Finally, various efforts from both local and foreign incumbents to build the next generation of payors have failed. We see very much a gap for a new player to emerge.
2) The Team
At Tau we believe team is always the single most important attribute. Cofounder / CEO Guilherme cofounded two healthcare startups before, running them as CEO for a combined 10 years. Cofounder / President Vitor is a MD / MBA, very rare in Brazil, who cofounded and sold two startups to public companies. The extended team here includes some of the best local investors and a series A that was the largest ever raised by a digital health startup in Brazil.
3) The Product
Sami is focused specifically on getting insurance to employees of small and medium businesses (SMBs). In traditional healthcare a patient has to go to the hospital, wait for appointments, and get referrals until reaching the right provider. What Sami does is streamline the whole process by having their own care team manage the communication with patients so they talk directly and quickly with the right healthcare professional. We see the differentiation in how well Sami has built this two-sided network, trained their people, which reflects in their NPS of 89 (net promoter score is a measure of customer satisfaction, anything above 80 is truly world class).
We are honored and excited to be part of Sami’s journey, using technology to solve a big problem. More at https://www.samisaude.com.br.
Originally published on “Data Driven Investor,” am happy to syndicate on other platforms. I am the Managing Partner and Cofounder of Tau Ventures with 20 years in Silicon Valley across corporates, own startup, and VC funds. These are purposely short articles focused on practical insights (I call it gl;dr — good length; did read). Many of my writings are at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amgarg/detail/recent-activity/posts and I would be stoked if they get people interested enough in a topic to explore in further depth. If this article had useful insights for you comment away and/or give a like on the article and on the Tau Ventures’ LinkedIn page, with due thanks for supporting our work. All opinions expressed here are my own.
