We often talk about security here in “Securities,” and this week, Lux funded two startups that are working on bringing two different types of security to people everywhere.
Vosbor is bringing the physical agricultural commodities markets online, to better manage risk and commodity flows in a world where supply chain and climate risks are ever increasing. The company is also unveiling its flagship trading platform, which allows buyers and sellers to connect, communicate and trade corn, wheat, soybean, palm oil and 14 other agricultural commodities in a transparent and secure environment. The platform is currently being piloted by 35 of the leading global commodity trading firms and food manufacturers.
Industry heavyweights Chris Mahoney, former CEO of Glencore Agriculture, and Soren Schroder, former CEO of Bunge, are both investing and joining the company’s board.
Unfortunately, getting care today can be astonishingly stressful — not to mention time-consuming and costly. The average American waits two weeks to meet with a primary-care physician, and Covid-19 exacerbated these dynamics, increasing some wait times by more than 100%. That’s partly because doctors are leaving the profession at record levels (1 in 5, with higher rates of dropouts from women, and reportedly also higher in pediatrics). The system is not serving patients or providers, both groups of which are burnt out from years under extreme pressure. Caregiving also historically puts an outsized burden on women, which has downstream economic implications on families and our broader economy.
No one is served well by the current system: not parents, not children, not doctors, and not clinics. Everyone is multi-tasking, and yet, pediatric care remains mired in age-old processes that require parents to take time off from work and doctors to take overtime to cover all the needs of our children today. One in four parents will take their children to urgent care in a given year, with costs that can quickly add up to hundreds (and often thousands) of dollars a year, not accounting for lost wages and time.
There’s a better way to serve parents and providers collectively, and that’s exactly the service Summer Health is building.
Food security + health security, all in one week. Chaos may be the dominant theme of 2022, but Lux remains as focused as ever on finding hard science and digital solutions to the toughest problems facing humanity today.