Dr. Sunny Kumar: Investing in Healthcare

The Slice

Changing paths is never easy, but if that decision allows you to generate a transformational impact that can benefit millions of people, then it's worth a try. In this episode, Dr. Sunny Kumar, Partner at GSR Ventures joins the show to share his entrepreneurial journey and talk about how to make the medical field a more versatile and innovative space. Plus, Sunny talks about his role in GSR Ventures and why New Haven’s style pizza deserves more praise!

JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

(00:47) - Sunny’s first approach to entrepreneurship and how it relates to innovation - “We had discovered that with the closure of one of the largest grocery stores in the area, there was no access to fresh fruit for all of downtown New Haven.”

(04:36) - The first pivotal moments that led Sunny into the healthcare path - “While I loved the basic science, I found the application to medicine -to the human impact that came with that- to be incredibly rewarding.”

(09:25) - Connecting research with business: Sunny’s MBA experience inside Stanford GSB - “These emerging technologies looked like they could dramatically change how medicine was trained and practiced. How patients interact with their physicians. But this has not yet been widely adopted.”

(19:48) - Wave Medics: The story of Sunny’s second startup - “The beauty of this was that you could use the smart speaker to interact with the patient, collect information, a process that information and then use that processed information to guide treatment.”

(26:30) - Transformative impact: Sunny’s advice for people thinking about switching their career paths - “I believe many of our programs can put trainees down a relatively narrow path without a lot of visibility into what those alternatives may be.”

(33:12) - A phase of change: What does the medical path need in order to become more versatile? - “Most of medicine is done in an institutional setting where administrative decisions aren’t made by the physicians. My view of the world is that physicians are increasingly recognizing that.”

(37:06) - What is GSR Ventures and how is Sunny helping them grow? (+Pizza talk!) - “I work with companies that are raising anywhere between a million dollars to $15 million from us with the goal of building technologies that are going to have a transformative impact in healthcare.”

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Connect with Sunny on LinkedIn

Learn more about GSR Ventures

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The Slice is produced by Sterling Shore and Rachael Roberts at StudioPod Media, and Shauna Davis at Osso VR. Engineered by nodalab.