Never Alone
As an investor, I have been asked a variation on the following question more than once, ‘what would you solve with your magic wand if you had one wish?’ Always, my answer is solving loneliness for seniors. Always. We have written about the profound impact loneliness has on the mental health and cognitive decline of our aging friends, family and neighbours on LinkedIn and newsletters. Recall that RoundUp where we described the impact of ‘passive sports engagement’ as a strategy for addressing loneliness?
Social isolation leads to loneliness.
What we don’t often discuss is that social isolation can be a hidden human experience, and it can affect people of ALL AGES. Men and women. It isn’t always visible. In fact, the feeling of being isolated can exist even though we are surrounded by others. This is where empathy comes in.
Empathy can be the bridge to solving loneliness. Leading with empathy can inspire others. It can be the choice to notice, to listen, to ask questions, to not assume everyone and everything is okay, to reach out, to connect, to be present.
Never Alone
June is ‘Men’s Mental Health Month’. The Canadian Men’s Health Foundation (‘CMHF’) campaign theme for 2025 is ‘Never Alone’. Earlier in 2025, CMHF and Intensions Consulting, surveyed 2,000 Canadian men aged 19 or older. Survey results reported that one in two men are at risk of social isolation, and that this risk increases for:
o Men who live alone (73%)
o Younger men ages 19-29 (67%)
o Racialized men (59%)
Let’s broaden the conversation about who, where and why so many people are socially isolated. Who in your world is at risk? It is not just the older adults in our life. Stigma still exists for too many men when it comes to talking about emotions and mental health struggles, leading with empathy can help break down the stigma.
A ChatGPT Moment
Speaking of stigma. Fascinating experiment. I typed the following prompt into ChatGPT: “I am lonely. How do I solve for this?” It is worth the experiment. Try it.
One suggestion from the tech was to reframe:
Loneliness is not a flaw - it’s a signal.
You’re wired for connection. That signal means your system is working.
I dare say, the complete written response had a hint of empathy. According to a recent survey from The Hustle over 47% of people have used AI as a therapist or to navigate personal issues, and one consistent comment was because there is no judgement. Whodathunk we could use ChatGPT as a strategy to avoid stigma.
What’s your why?
From therapy to coaching. Relentless teammate, Isabella Bertold, recently started The Coffee Shop Download, a Substack that is primarily a commentary about her training and racing experiences as a professional cyclist, however, she often weaves in her perspective as a health tech VC. In a post entitled “What’s Your Why?” Isabella reflected on the role of empathy when it comes to the use of AI and coaching:
Imagine asking the founder of an AI-enabled coaching company: “What’s your why?” Now ask a human coach the same thing. Who would you trust with your health, training, and performance?
Isabella amplifies how empathy is built from experience, using judgment. We are entering a fascinating era as we face the choice of when, and how, we introduce evolving technology into our daily experience and decision making.
Human Powered AI
Empathy made an appearance at Web Summit Vancouver. Well, it was a thread that was woven through several conversations about artificial intelligence (‘AI’). Amidst expressed concerns about AI replacing humans at a pace making many feel uncomfortable, empathy burbled to the surface of conversations and presentations.
The key message conveyed? Empathy will never be replaced. The ability to connect with others without having shared the same experience is not a data driven process. It requires heart. People continue to be the fuel required to run companies. The bigger question is, how much human fuel is required?
Two Takes with Tamer
Web Summit Week was busy, in addition to the formal programming and content there was a flurry of satellite events and soirees that were taking advantage of the global attention on entrepreneurs and investors. This led to Tamer Mohamed, CEO of Relentless portfolio company, Aspect Biosystems and I sharing a stage twice. On Monday, May 26th we participated in a panel at an invitation-only event on the topic of ‘Advancing Healthcare Innovation Through Impact Capital.’ Themes ranged from enthusiasm about growing data sets that are delivering meaningful insights across health tech, to a debate as to whether Hinge Health’s successful IPO is indicative of broader ecosystem adoption of remote patient monitoring, to everyone underscoring the importance of patience and taking a long-term view when investing in health. Amen.
Two days later Tamer and I went back to school to deliver content for a new course hosted at ‘iCORD’ [1]. The course is a pilot for the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UBC entitled: ‘Biotechnology – Translation and Commercialization of Research’.
Tamer shared the origin story of Aspect, a UBC PhD candidate at the time, and how the co-founders’ collective conviction convinced them to create Aspect Biosystems. Tamer reiterated the importance of surrounding yourself with good people and to be clear on what you want the culture to be from the onset. I dare say this may be at the heart of the company’s secret sauce.
I capitalized on the opportunity to follow Tamer and opted to share my summary investment rationale from our 2017 investment documentation. Invigorating to share the due diligence ‘ah – ha’ moments that converted to an investment decision. Without the aid of a crystal ball, or that elusive magic wand, recognizing the unique rights the company had crafted around intellectual property with early customers was compelling. Fast forward, with the aid of a rear-view mirror, connecting the dots between those savvy rights and their multi-billion-dollar partnership with Novo Nordisk, well, a monster step forward in commercialization of research and deeply inspiring for the students in that room.
Relentless Portfolio Notes
Web Summit – BC Pavillion
For a conference that included everything from innovation in movie making, autonomous trucking, and space technology, the Relentless portfolio was well represented and profiled. As part of Life Sciences Day at the BC pavilion keynotes from David Helliwell, Co-Founder of Thrive Health and Tamer from Aspect (photo opps 3x in one week with Tamer!), took to the stage while prime real estate on the exhibit floor spotlighted VitaminLab with Founder and CEO Anton Solonnikov and made the Relentless team proud.
Canary Medical
2025 promises to be a big year for Canary and the sharing of how their technology is having an impact on patient care and post-surgical recovery. First out of the blocks, on May 6th, 2025 their technology was represented in the Journal of Orthopaedic Experience and Innovation with patient case studies. Canary provides objective mobility metrics post-surgery and is helping clinicians with decision support predicting patients facing good versus poor preferred outcomes. This is a very big deal in care management.
Later in 2025 and early 2026 we expect there to be significant enthusiasm at both the AAOS (American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons) conference and AAHKS (American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons) conference as Canary has submitted many abstracts demonstrating the impact of “data harvest” from the thousands of patients living with their smart knee, the PersonaIQ (‘PIQ’). Spoiler alert – the predictive data and measures are stunning. #digitalbiomarkers
Modality.AI
Modality’s patent portfolio is growing in depth and strength with their Patent Issuance – “Customizing Computer Generated Dialog for Different Pathologies.” The patent describes a new method for customizing computer-generated dialog sessions to improve interaction for users with speech pathologies, such as dysarthria. By making the dialog system more sensitive and accurate for users with speech impairments, this method aims to significantly enhance the effectiveness of automated remote monitoring and assessment tools.
And They Say You Can’t Feel Continental Drift
We are participating in the tectonic shift of care delivery. To reiterate . . . enhance the effectiveness of automated remote monitoring, predicting patients facing poor preferred outcomes. Both Canary Medical and Modality are Relentless portfolio companies delivering on the promise of deep patient data sets facilitating remote care. We are witnessing what is possible with remote patient monitoring. It is an extraordinary time to be an investor in healthcare innovation. In fact, it’s seismic.
[1] International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, a world-leading health research center located at Vancouver General Hospital.