How top healthcare VCs generate alpha with Garheng Kong (HealthQuest Capital)

What does it take to consistently generate venture capital returns in one of the most complex industries in the world? Garheng Kong, founder and managing partner of HealthQuest Capital, has spent more than two decades answering that question, backing transformative healthcare companies that improve patient outcomes while bending the healthcare cost curve. A physician, scientist, and engineer by training, Garheng has led investments resulting in more than 40 IPO and M&A exits across medical devices, diagnostics, biopharma, and healthcare services.

Here's a glimpse of what you'll learn:

• 00:10 Meet Garheng Kong

• 01:51 Athletics and Teamwork

• 03:08 From Medicine to Investing

• 05:29 Why Start HealthQuest

• 08:17 Modality Agnostic Edge

• 09:42 Measuring Outcomes and Value

• 12:35 Evaluating Founders Fast

• 15:35 Hidden Systemic Problems

• 17:55 AI in Healthcare

• 25:40 Lessons and Mentorship

• 29:08 Succession and Alpha Edge

• 32:07 Lightning Round and Wrap

In this episode,

Garheng shares the investment philosophy behind HealthQuest Capital and explains why the firm takes a modality-agnostic approach to healthcare investing. Instead of focusing on a single sector like software or medical devices, HealthQuest evaluates opportunities across the entire healthcare ecosystem, searching for companies that deliver measurable improvements in both patient outcomes and healthcare economics. Garheng also discusses how today's payer-driven healthcare environment has fundamentally changed innovation, requiring startups to prove both clinical value and financial impact from day one.

Additionally, Steve Brotman and Garheng dive into the structural inefficiencies that create massive opportunities for healthcare innovation, from administrative bloat to the disconnect between patients, providers, and payers. They explore how venture investors evaluate founders in the first minutes of a meeting, why resilience and domain expertise matter more than perfect business plans, and how AI is beginning to transform healthcare by saving both time and lives. Garheng also shares his perspective on the technologies shaping the next decade of healthcare, from robotic surgery and AI diagnostics to why gene editing may be overhyped today while genetic sequencing is quietly becoming one of the most powerful tools in modern medicine.