Every day, cancer takes 1,700 lives in the U.S.—over 1,000 of them avoidable.
This is a preventable tragedy and one of the largest underfunded investment opportunities of our time. We need to take action right now to improve early detection, ensure guideline-based care for every patient, and build the infrastructure that turns what we already know into lives saved.
This is why Oncology Ventures exists. Together, we can turn today’s avoidable losses into tomorrow’s victories.
Thesis
We invest in healthcare data companies tackling the biggest problems in cancer care.
The U.S. oncology system is fragmented, expensive, and filled with barriers to evidence-based care. Our thesis is built around funding technologies that address this—from early detection to patient navigation to data access and AI-powered treatment optimization.
$210B
annual cancer spend in the U.S., growing 12% per year
1.9M
new diagnoses annually
42%
of patients lose life savings within two years of diagnosis
2nd
leading cause of death in the U.S.
How it began
Ben Freeberg's story
Last Day of Chemotherapy
It was a usual Tuesday night in February of 2017. Dinner with colleagues, no alcohol, just laughs and good conversation.
As we got up to leave, I collapsed.
I was 24, healthy, active—a lifelong athlete. The ER ran some scans, drew blood, and sent me home with a shrug: “You’re dehydrated.” For the next nine months I lived in limbo. Severe back pain that stretching and chiropractors couldn’t fix. Abdominal pain waved off as “probably a kidney stone.” Exhaustion I was told was just “getting older.” My gut knew something was wrong, but no one could connect the dots.
Fast forward to December 2017. Abroad for work, I suddenly couldn’t breathe. In the hospital I learned I had a blood clot in my lung—something that doesn’t just “happen” to a young, healthy person. More scans, more faxes to doctors back in the U.S., and finally a clue: likely a mass or tumor. The wrong blood thinner added weeks of painful injections before I landed back in New York… only to discover a second clot in my other lung. Imagine a heavy man sitting on your chest and refusing to move. That’s what every breath felt like.
On January 14, 2018, I got the call: Stage IIIA testicular cancer. Aggressive. Already spreading to my neck. Treatment began immediately—so immediately that I couldn’t even go home for clothes before chemo started dripping into my veins.
The next four months were brutal. Daily IVs, 40+ medications, multiple surgeries, neutropenia, and the lingering pain of blood clots. I once tried walking to chemo—half a mile in, I collapsed on the sidewalk, heaving. I felt alone, scared, and confused. Some days the pain was so overwhelming I didn’t know how to exist in my own body.
My experience taught me how fragile, fragmented, and broken cancer care is.
I survived. But I came out of it changed. I had seen firsthand how outdated workflows, misaligned incentives, and data gaps made my journey harder than it had to be.
That’s why I started Oncology Ventures—to back the founders and companies building the future of cancer care. We focus on data-driven technologies that can transform the journey end to end: from early detection and precision diagnostics, to care navigation and survivorship, and the non-drug infrastructure that makes treatment work in the real world. Because no patient should feel lost in a healthcare system that should be designed to treat them.
Real People. Real Progress.
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90% of Americans miss out on lung cancer screenings, which is the #1 cause of cancer death in the U.S.
mPATH bridges that gap—bringing patients access to care, regardless of where they live.
Tono has helped 15,000 (and counting) patients receive advanced specialty care and stay on treatment by managing side effects.
Multiple patients have reached out to Tono saying “you have saved my life.”
Risa has freed up 36 full-time employees worth of time in one of its cancer center partners, leading to $2M / year in savings for that system.
90% of Radiation Oncologists report staff shortages.
Lumonus users have reported a 100 NPS - unheard of in the healthcare industry - as they reduce costs and errors while cutting turnaround time for administrative work .
OncoveryCare reduced a patient's PHQ score from 15 (moderately severe depression) to 2 (minimal depression).
"I feel like a new person. OncoveryCare gave me the motivation to change things."
Reimagine Care has resolved 95% of symptom management interactions without patients having to go to the Emergency Room.
Concr's Farrsight AI platform saved 44 people's lives through their seminal study.
Retrospective data shows median survival rates improving from 1.5 years to 9.7 years.
SpotDoc's technology helped a highly trained Dermatologist catch early melanoma under a patient’s chin. The doctor didn't plan to examine this area, but this discovery made the cancer treatable at an early stage.
A 31 year old woman was told by her doctor she didn’t qualify for early screening. Gabbi found she had a 21% lifetime risk of breast cancer. Then helped her get genetic testing which found a mutation elevating her to 44% lifetime risk. Now she receives screening every 6 months instead of waiting until she is 40 years old to start.
Ignite has saved research coordinators 70 hours per patient, while reducing lab queries by 90%.
