Jumpstart Nova

Jumpstart Nova is a venture capital firm based in Nashville, Tennessee, and Los Angeles, California, specializing in early-stage healthcare companies founded and led by Black entrepreneurs. The firm closed its initial fund at $55 million in January 2022, significantly oversubscribing its $30 million target. It actively deploys capital from Fund II into Seed and Series A stage companies, investing $250,000 to $4,000,000 per round across health IT, digital health, and consumer wellness. Its portfolio includes nine active companies such as Mae (maternal health), Therify (mental health benefits), and Feno (oral health). Co-founder Marcus Whitney established the firm in 2022, pioneering the first Black-led healthcare venture capital fund in America. The firm focuses on health IT, Digital Health, Tech-enabled Services, Consumer Health & Wellness, and Medicaid Services.

High-Level Overview

Jumpstart Nova is a healthcare-focused seed venture fund that began as the first U.S. venture fund to invest exclusively in Black-founded and led healthcare companies, launched under the Jumpstart Health Investors platform. Its mission is to correct the chronic underinvestment in Black innovators in healthcare by backing exceptional founders who are building transformative businesses across health IT, digital health, biotech, diagnostic devices, tech-enabled services, and consumer health and wellness. The firm combines the agility of a new fund with the stability of an established venture platform, leveraging proprietary deal flow, data, and operating systems from Jumpstart Health Investors.

Jumpstart Nova’s investment philosophy centers on identifying high-potential founders—particularly those historically overlooked by traditional healthcare VCs—and partnering with them “shoulder to shoulder” to build durable, impactful companies. By focusing on Seed and Series A stages, the firm plays a critical role in de-risking early healthcare ventures and accelerating their path to scale. Its work has helped surface and support a growing cohort of Black-led healthcare startups, expanding diversity in the healthcare innovation ecosystem and influencing how the broader venture industry thinks about inclusion, founder potential, and value creation in health.

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Origin Story

Jumpstart Nova was launched in 2022 as the first venture fund in America dedicated exclusively to Black-founded and led healthcare companies, emerging from Jumpstart Health Investors (JHI), a Nashville-based healthcare venture platform with a track record of launching multiple funds and supporting over 150 portfolio companies. The idea was catalyzed by Marcus Whitney, a seasoned healthcare investor and entrepreneur, who, through JHI’s prior exits (including several led by Black founders), recognized a systemic gap: talented Black healthcare innovators were consistently underfunded, under-resourced, and under-recognized.

Whitney and his team spent over a year building industry partnerships and assembling a $55 million oversubscribed Fund I, backed by major healthcare institutions including Eli Lilly, HCA Healthcare, Cardinal Health, Atrium Health, Henry Ford Health System, and the American Hospital Association. Fund I focused solely on Black-led healthcare startups, creating what was then the largest known database of early-stage Black-founded healthcare companies in the U.S. With Fund II, Jumpstart Nova evolved into the institutional, strategic seed fund of the Jumpstart Health Investors platform, expanding its mandate to back all exceptional healthcare founders while maintaining its deep commitment to equity and inclusion. The firm is co-led by Marcus Whitney (Founder, Managing Partner) and Kathryne Cooper, MBA (General Partner), and operates from Nashville, Tennessee and Los Angeles, California.

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Core Differentiators

First-Mover in Black-Led Healthcare Investing
Jumpstart Nova launched as the first U.S. venture fund to invest exclusively in Black-founded and led healthcare companies, creating a blueprint for inclusive healthcare venture capital and setting a new standard for how the industry can address systemic underinvestment.

Healthcare-First, Founder-Centric Approach
The firm is led by experienced healthcare venture investors with deep domain expertise and extensive networks across providers, payers, and life sciences. They focus on founders who are building companies that can lower the cost of care, improve patient outcomes, and drive systemic change in U.S. healthcare.

Strategic Seed Fund with Platform Backing
As the institutional seed fund of Jumpstart Health Investors, Jumpstart Nova benefits from a mature venture platform with proprietary deal flow, an operating system, and a robust pipeline of healthcare startups. This gives the fund both innovation and stability, reducing risk while enabling faster, smarter investments.

Deep Ecosystem Integration
Jumpstart Nova is tightly connected to the broader healthcare ecosystem through its LP base of leading health systems, pharma companies, and industry associations. This network provides portfolio companies with strategic partnerships, pilot opportunities, and commercial traction that are often hard to access for underrepresented founders.

Hands-On, Engaged Partnership
The firm positions itself as an “engaged investor,” partnering closely with founders to build great healthcare businesses. It also works in tandem with Jumpstart Foundry, a pre-seed accelerator, to support earlier-stage companies and create a continuous funnel of talent into its seed and Series A pipeline.

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Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Jumpstart Nova sits at the intersection of three powerful trends: the rise of digital health and health tech, the growing demand for diversity and inclusion in venture capital, and the urgent need to reduce disparities in healthcare access and outcomes. As healthcare innovation becomes increasingly software- and data-driven, the pool of potential founders is expanding—but traditional venture capital has been slow to reflect that diversity. Jumpstart Nova is helping to rebalance that equation by proving that Black-led and other underrepresented healthcare startups can deliver strong returns while solving real clinical and operational problems.

The firm’s work also aligns with broader institutional momentum toward economic equity, as seen in commitments from banks, health systems, and corporates to support minority-led businesses. By creating a scalable, repeatable model for investing in overlooked founders, Jumpstart Nova is influencing how other funds think about sourcing, diligence, and value creation in healthcare. Its success with Fund I has demonstrated that a focused, mission-driven strategy can attract top-tier LPs and generate strong deal flow, paving the way for more specialized, inclusive funds in the future.

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Quick Take & Future Outlook

Jumpstart Nova is poised to become a defining model for how healthcare venture capital can be both high-performing and equitable. As it scales Fund II and continues to back exceptional healthcare founders across all backgrounds, the firm is likely to deepen its influence on the healthcare startup ecosystem—shaping which companies get funded, which problems get solved, and who gets to lead the next generation of health innovation.

Looking ahead, the firm’s ability to leverage its platform, LP network, and growing track record will be key to maintaining its edge in a competitive seed-stage market. We can expect Jumpstart Nova to continue expanding its portfolio of companies that improve access, affordability, and outcomes in healthcare, while also serving as a catalyst for more inclusive venture practices across the industry. In a world where healthcare innovation must reflect the diversity of the patients it serves, Jumpstart Nova isn’t just backing startups—it’s helping to redefine the future of health.