Alpha+: Why Genius Guild Invests in Market-Based Solutions That Improve Our Well-Being

This is a part of a series exploring the foundation of Genius Guild’s investment thesis.

Everything is health. Health is everything.

Environmental challenges like lead in drinking water directly impacts a child’s cognitive development. Increases in fuel prices impact the mobility and economic opportunity of communities, especially those in areas with limited access to public transportation. A growing body of research connects the prevalence of food deserts, areas without access to quality food, with poor health outcomes, including adverse cardiovascular effects and worse survival rates for cancer.

Everything is health. Health is everything.

As the COVID-19 pandemic devastatingly demonstrated, everything impacts our health and well-being. As investors, Genius Guild believes that investing in the well-being of communities–especially communities that are most proximate to the problems–generates what we call “Alpha+”- outsized returns for investors, founders and communities.

Our “Alpha+” focus is supported by a number of recent business trends:

• Affordable, quality health care services. Genius Guild investments are part of an investment sector that continues to grow–in 2021, Best Buy spent $400 million in 2021 to acquire Current Health, a technology platform for at-home care that brings together remote patient monitoring, telehealth, and patient engagement. In 2023, the deals have only increased: Oak Street Health — a value-based network of primary care centers for adults on Medicare — announced its acquisition by CVS for $10.6 billion in February, and Signify — a healthcare platform that combines technology, analytics, and networks to create value-based payment programs — was acquired by CVS for $8 billion in a deal that closed in March 2023.
• Education. Clever, a digital learning platform used widely among K-12 schools in the U.S., was acquired by Kahoot for $500M in 2021, and online tutoring service ClutchPrep was acquired by Pearson in 2022.
• Housing, basic amenities, and the environment. Genius Guild portfolio companies like Stimulus join other companies in the clean technology space like Bloc Power, which retrofits homes in low-income communities to be more energy efficient and raised $25 million in its recent Series B round last month, and Divert, which tackles the problem of food waste and raised $100 million in equity funding and $1 billion in structured project finance to build new processing facilities that convert wasted food into renewable natural gas.