Andy Smith

Andy Smith, a Principal at Oak HC/FT, joined the firm in 2017 and focuses on growth equity and early-stage venture opportunities in healthcare.

Andy currently serves as a Board Observer at August Bioservices, Curana Health, Infusion for Health, Maven and Truepill. Andy is also actively involved with DispatchHealth, Komodo Health, Precision for Medicine and Rubicon Founders. His prior investments include Olive and GeneDx Holdings (NASDAQ: WGS).

Prior to joining Oak HC/FT, Andy was an Associate at Safeguard Scientifics where he focused on technology-driven businesses in healthcare. Prior to this, Andy was an Analyst at Credit Suisse where he focused on the healthcare services sector.

Andy received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce.

I was diagnosed with epilepsy at seven years old. My world turned upside down as I was tossed in and around the healthcare system. I understood early how frustrating patient care can be. But I also saw firsthand the power of breakthrough treatments and techniques. This is a huge part of why I want to work with companies taking on the biggest problems in healthcare.

Once my mind latches onto a problem, I cannot move on until it's solved. As a kid, I’d ask for a Lego set each year at Christmas. I’d shake each box underneath the tree to find the Legos and then put them all together before opening any other presents. This is why I love helping companies solve complex problems. There’s nothing harder than being a healthcare CEO. I’ve seen firsthand that when you hang in there with relentless energy and refuse to move on until the problem is solved, the path forward opens up.

Healthcare is hard because you can't just build good products, you also need to align incentives. The ecosystem has so many stakeholders, each of whom can make or break you. A 10x better experience won't succeed unless it drives some value back to payers and/or providers. I've seen too many great companies with novel solutions fail because they couldn't get this right.

We are starting to see the medication side of healthcare come into focus as it becomes a much larger share of healthcare costs. Delivering more robust solutions that expedite therapies coming to market and more seamlessly integrate their delivery and management into the patient journey will be critical over the next few decades as our healthcare system evolves.