When we met Vitor Asseituno nearly a decade ago it was in San Francisco’s Rock Health incubator, founded by Halle Tecco. Vitor has since gone onto build and exit a healthcare company in Brazil, and was then the organizer of one of the largest healthcare conferences in Brazil, which he was nice enough to ask me to keynote.
When Vitor told us he was linking up with Luiz Guilherme Berardo to build Sami, what he called “the Oscar Health insurance of Brazil,” we were intrigued. When he further told us he’d managed to bring on people like Alan Warren, Oscar’s former CTO, Sergio Ricardo, Amil’s former CEO who helped the company exit to United Healthcare for $4.9 billion, and Paulo Veras, founder of 99, it further demonstrated to us a key human characteristic of founders we love – they have a charisma, and the capacity to tell stories that resonate with people who can move the company forward. This human quality, often overlooked in our “techie” world, matters in leadership, it matters in fundraising, it matters in sales, and it matters in hiring.
Over the course of many months of getting to know the team, and their goal of providing cheaper and more accessible healthcare to Brazil’s over than 200 million person population, we decided to join Redpoint eVentures, Valor Capital Group and monashees in what has become the largest health Series A round in Latin America. We couldn’t be more proud of the team, mission, and incredible investing partners.