Rob Go
Today, Monument announced the launch of their virtual programs for people looking to change their relationship with alcohol. You can read more about the company here and see their segment on GMA from a few weeks ago here.
Our mantra at NextView is to “design the future we want to live in”. That is particularly true in the case of Monument. Alcohol abuse is an enormous societal problem with far reaching economic consequences. Pretty much everyone I know has a friend or relative who struggles with alcohol, or is going through this battle themselves. While treatment programs do exist, there is wide variation in terms of price, quality, and efficacy. Some of the most well-known and successful programs have existed for nearly a hundred years, but have not evolved as technology, medical practices, and end-user attitudes have shifted.
Monument takes a medical approach to this problem that is personalized, data-driven, and leverages software best practices to massively reduce the friction of engaging with the service. As a firm, we have had a thesis around the unbundling healthcare to create best-in-class, vertical healthcare solutions for the world’s biggest problems. Alcohol addiction is near the top of the list.
We are pleased to once again be working with the founders of Monument Mike Russell and Justin Geller. We worked with Mike and Justin in their prior company Paintzen, which was one of the only labor marketplaces of their era that thrived and had a successful (and capital efficient) exit to PPG. As they were conceiving of this business based on Mike’s own experience with medical treatment for managing alcohol, we were captivated by the opportunity to partner with them again.
Rounding out the founding team is Amit Klein who provides tech and software product leadership after various stints at Nexar and Samsung. The phrase I tend to use when describing this team is that they can “cover ground” like few other teams as they are able to cultivate a staggering number of opportunities more quickly that teams 2-3 times their size. We’re excited to be “getting the band back together” on the coinvestor side too, with our friends Collaborative Fund, LHV, Red Sea, Corigin, and Data Point Capital.
While the need for Monument’s services seems aptly timed with the current Covid-19 Crisis, we actually made our initial investment into the company back in June of 2019. We were excited about the opportunity for the company then, and in a way, the current environment is just pulling forward a future we had conviction about at the time. Congratulations again to the Monument team on their launch. We are proud to be partnering with them again to help address this critical problem.