At General Catalyst, one of our core values is radical collaboration. Whether we’re putting together two of our favorite founders or figuring out ways to partner with rather than “disrupt” industries, we think collaboration is one of the keys to creating an enduring company. We have been living this in the healthcare industry through our Health Assurance work and have begun to bring to bear companies like Commure, Homeward Health, and Hippocratic AI that are doing their part in unlocking true Health Assurance in areas like interoperability, rural health, and LLMs purpose-built for healthcare.

We have long spoken with our Health Assurance partners about cybersecurity. Between 2009 and 2021, there were 4,419 data breaches involving 500 or more records that were reported to the Health & Human Services Office (and likely many, many more unreported). More recently we have seen it affect the broader ecosystem with Change Healthcare. Unfortunately, the downstream effects are quite real: individuals aren't receiving necessary care in a timely manner, hampering the effectiveness of our providers.

As we see it, the cybersecurity products for healthcare systems are not meeting the moment. Understanding our healthcare system and working with them to create the right solutions has always been our instinct in working with vs. trying to disrupt the healthcare system. This has not happened yet in cybersecurity, where the same vendors sell the same solutions to healthcare systems as they do to banks and insurance companies. We believe there is a better way to solve the problem.

We see a real opportunity to partner with the best and brightest in our Health Assurance ecosystem, cybersecurity professionals who have worked on the front lines of breaches, and best-in-class cybersecurity vendors. By listening to and partnering with the healthcare ecosystem, we think we can better protect our healthcare system and allow them to do what they do best: keep us healthy.

Today, we are excited to announce the creation of Blackwell Security, a cybersecurity company made for healthcare, alongside our partners at Rally Ventures. This coalesces our work in Health Assurance and cybersecurity and we could not be more thrilled for the team to emerge from stealth.

The founding team of Jaclyn, Jason, and Geyer gained intimate familiarity with the cybersecurity problem in healthcare at companies like Deloitte, Dispatch Health, Cylera, and RSA. Each of them, alongside the rest of the Blackwell team, brings true empathy and energy to solve this problem. This combination of founding team members alongside our Health Assurance partners and Rally is a core tenet in our Creation strategy: finding the best possible talent and partners and building together.

It is an honor for GC to focus on the cybersecurity problem in healthcare — one that touches all of us. We are excited to partner with Jaclyn, Jason, Geyer, and Rally on this journey.