The Pulse by Wharton Digital Health
00:00:09 · Lindy, Lindy, Caroline Xie
[00:00:09] S0: Hey, everyone. This is Lindy, one of your cohosts of the Pulse podcast. Today, I'm joined by Caroline Xie, general partner at Iconiq Growth, where she leads health care investments. Iconiq Growth is the venture arm of Iconiq Capital backing exceptional technology leaders who are building category defining businesses. Caroline has invested in standout health care companies, including Devoted Health, Notable, Benchline, Twin Health, and Komodo Health. In this episode, we'll dive into her career journey, what she looks for in founders, and her perspective on the future of health care in 2025. I hope you enjoy this conversation. [00:00:54] S1: Hi, Caroline. Welcome to the show, and thank you for joining us today. How are you? [00:00:58] S2: I'm doing very well. Thank you for having me. [00:01:01] S1: Well, thank you so much for joining us. We're very excited about this conversation. But before getting into it, we have a tradition of asking all of our guests this one icebreaker. So what did you wanna be when you grew up? [00:01:14] S2: Well, so so when I was seven, I knew I wanted to become a business person. I had no idea what that meant. My family had just immigrated to Singapore at the time, and I was aware and had an appreciation for how much things cost, like utilities or or rent and other daily items. And so I thought when I grow up, I would do something related to numbers and business.
00:01:14 · Caroline Xie, Lindy
[00:01:14] S2: Well, so so when I was seven, I knew I wanted to become a business person. I had no idea what that meant. My family had just immigrated to Singapore at the time, and I was aware and had an appreciation for how much things cost, like utilities or or rent and other daily items. And so I thought when I grow up, I would do something related to numbers and business. [00:01:41] S1: That's awesome. And you're probably one of the few people who can say that they made their dreams come true. And this is a great kind of pivot. Yeah. This is a great pivot into our next question. Just as we're getting to know you, could you tell us a little bit more about your career journey to date and how you first transitioned into investing and what led you to stay on?
00:02:02 · Caroline Xie
[00:02:02] S2: Yeah. Absolutely. I... I've always had an interest in in working internationally given I had grown up in different parts of Asia. And so after university, I I decided to start my career at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong. I had learned from an alumni from a university who worked there that one of the most productive groups there was the financial institutions group or FIG. I would learn a lot in that group. He failed to mention that it was also a very intense group, but I should have expected that. It was really an amazing learning experience. There, we covered many countries throughout Asia and a number of different sectors, including life insurance, property and casualty insurance, and banks. I also had the fortune of making lifelong friends from my time there. And ultimately, I ended up raising my hand to relocate back to the San Francisco Bay Area where my family is. And an opportunity had come up with a health care group in the Bay Area with Morgan Stanley, and that's how I fell into health care. And there, I spent a lot of time with biotech, diagnostic tests, device companies. And then in 2013, I was approached by a recruiter about a brand new technology fund. And there was no website, no investments. It had very unique backdrop and extraordinary network. And I was really struck by everyone I met even in the interview process. So everyone I met is exceptionally accomplished, but also incredibly authentic, humble. And even during the interview process, I felt that everyone genuinely cared about me and what I had to say. And so I ended up starting at Iconiq a few weeks later. Honestly, I was very fortunate. I had grown up around technology. My parents are engineers, and I've always wanted to be in tech but had not had the opportunity until then. And given I had spent a lot of my time up until then with insurance and health care and biotech, to be honest, I was also just learning about SaaS at the time, but came across this incredible opportunity and fell into tech investing.
00:04:20 · Lindy
[00:04:20] S1: That sounds like a very serendipitous portion of events, and I think everyone says that, you know, the people that you work with is the most important. And maybe just keep taking a deeper dive into the firm itself, could you give our listeners just a high level overview of Iconiq Growth, its history, and what really sets the firm apart?
00:04:39 · Caroline Xie
[00:04:39] S2: Yeah. So Iconiq Growth was founded in 2013 out of the Iconiq Capital Family Office as a way to help our entrepreneurs support the next generation of entrepreneurs. We really pride ourselves on uncommon community, uncommon care, and uncommon outcomes. And and the power of the Iconiq community is is hard to encapsulate in in general... Generalities or words, but it's very evident in anecdotes and references. And I I tell founders the best way to find out what it's like to work with us is to speak with another founder in the portfolio. In terms of uncommon community, we really aim to invest in relationships the way we invest in companies. We take a very long term view, And we believe we have built a community of people and institutions of generational influence, and we offer this and a robust set of unique resources to really help founders of all stages accelerate and and realize the full potential of their business. And this really starts with highly curated commercial and strategic introductions. And last year alone, we drove over a 450 high impact introductions. Introductions. Thousand I'm here more than eleven years and constantly amazed by the influential leaders in our network, the new connections we're driving, and the genuine excitement and deep interest in next gen technologies. The idea of uncommon care has always been our guiding principle, and we really wanna earn our seat around the table when partnering with founders and companies. We have an amazing team here to support our portfolio companies through the strategic and commercial connections that I mentioned that really span the globe as well as leadership advisory hiring. And as an example, last year, we advised more than a 120 executive and board level searches. We also have an incredible analytics and insights team and really a world class technical and go to market leaders who spend time with our portfolio companies, and we bring people together in various events and and intimate dinners that we host. The last year, we hosted over 40 dinners and events around the world across 15 cities. And so it's it's really... This is all really important to us. And, ultimately, we measure our success based on the uncommon outcomes we try to drive for the portfolio.
00:07:13 · Caroline Xie, Lindy
And one of the best, most rewarding parts of what we've built is seeing it come full circle where the founders we partnered with give back to the community, and they spend time with the next generation of entrepreneurs or they dedicate their resources towards philanthropic efforts. [00:07:32] S1: Wow. Those are some truly impressive stats. And, you know, given how fast the firm has grown, when you first joined, it was only a four person team back in 2013. I know a lot of our listeners are either thinking about founding businesses or joining a very small team. What kind of drove your decision to join the fund at that early stage?