Episode #600: Inside Ola Capital-Richey Hansen's Move from Endurance Sports to Healthy Aging Investments

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This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC with my

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sidekick Dave Gannil. And we are here to talk about Hola Capital.

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Richie Hansen coming in from the running world

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by way of Boulder, by way of San Diego, by way

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of could talk about investment criteria and his

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fund that he's raising now. So welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks. Thanks

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for having me on. Awesome. So let's just take a step

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back and talk about what you've done on the

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sports side and endurance side. And then what gives you

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the right, I guess to raise a fund and invest in companies

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that you think are potentially the next big thing coming down the

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athletic pike. Yeah. Yeah. So

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I was a collegiate athlete at UC San Diego. I ran cross country and track

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and field for them. And when I

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graduated from grad school I immediately moved out to Boulder, Colorado where I've been

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since 2009. Started a sports

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injury prevention health and wellness clinic out of

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Boulder, had satellite location down in Denver. Working mostly with

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professional endurance athletes would work a lot of the national

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championship and Olympic Trials events for USA Track and Field.

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And in 2016 I was getting, my wife's a

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pretty high profile long distance runner. She finished 10th at the Olympic

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trials. In 2016 we were getting approached by a number

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of athletes that wanted to train either with her or in the same

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system. And so we started a non profit called Roots Running

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Project. Four post collegiate high

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performing athletes that wanted to continue their competitive

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career. So we created this entity to

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formalize it, give them structure, training fundraise for

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getting them to competitions or for gear to continue

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their performance aspirations. And we quickly grew into

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one of the more competitive training groups in the country.

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At our largest size we, we had about 33

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athletes, all Olympic trials contenders from

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1500 meters up to the marathon. And

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we've had athletes place in top 10 at national championships, top

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10 at the world marathon majors, the majority of whom

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all qualify for the Olympic trials and still currently run that

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group today. So it's a, it's a fun passion project. Let me, let me ask

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you a question. What was the genesis on having that as a

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nonprofit versus a for profit entity? Yeah,

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it's a good question. I mean some of it is the athletes

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themselves with performance brands are treated as independent

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contractors. They're not treated as W2 employees employees. And

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it allowed us to be able to accept in donations

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from multiple different entities as opposed to being a,

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it was never about me trying to generate a business as a a for

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profit revenue stream for myself. It was more being able to use as

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a pass through entity to be able to provide this infrastructure for the

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athletes. It allowed some of these brands to also be

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contributors to what we were doing on the, the

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athlete front. And then it allowed us to stay a little bit more

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agnostic with who our partnerships could be. The individual athletes

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could still receive their, their

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sponsorship from their, from their respective brands,

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but allowed us to be able to take in some of the developing athletes that

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weren't necessarily partnered with a brand to continue their development

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as well. So, so, so just so I'm clear, because this is an

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interesting point because I had a friend of mine who was starting up

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a new business and I said, you know, it's better to just do this as

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a non profit. It was, it was in a

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rehab therapy category. But are you

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saying that if an athlete was to

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align with your group, it could potentially

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conflict with a brand exclusive that they had

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potentially on, on the other side? Yeah. If you look at

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the dynamic of a lot of the training groups, they tend to be backed by

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one major shoe company and then that

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shoe company hires the coach to manage the training group and then they'll

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recruit athletes to be on that brand. But no athlete

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outside of that brand can be on that training group. And so a lot of

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times you're beholden at the selection criteria of who

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the brand wants on their portfolio. When

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we started, most of the athletes that

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were joining our training group, they were good, talented athletes,

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multi all time, all Americans at the D2, D3 level,

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all Americans or second team, all American at the Division 1 level. But

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they were also not the candidates to be signed by a Nike, signed by

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an Adidas. They were good, just not great enough to get an

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endorsement right out of college. And so we provided that

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infrastructure to allow them to continue developing, maybe get their

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full sponsorship in the future. But

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at least at the time being when they joined our team, they were still

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at that tier, just below that level. So they didn't pay to

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be part of your training organization?

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Yeah, so the way that my compensation works is based on

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their performance. So if

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they earn like the, the behind the scenes side of the sport

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is if an athlete's doing Chicago marathon, they'll have a contract with Chicago

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that pays them an appearance fee. They might get performance bonuses based on

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their part, how fast they run at the event. And I'll

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earn a percentage of that as it relates to my okay

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compensation. But with, with

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our training group, a lot of the funds that are coming in are going to

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helping to support the operational expenses of the

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group itself to help cover training needs. Of the athlete.

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We've covered like MRIs in the past for

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athletes that are going through an injury rehab process to

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support the athlete.

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This is Pete Moore. I want to let you in on a little secret. There's

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this company called Promotion Vault and what they do is they give out rewards

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from retailers that allow you to incentivize your members

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without having to do zero down and one month free or

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giving away shakes or giving away t shirts. What you want to do is

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build a rewards program that lasts, that people value

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and that doesn't discount your own products and services. So here's the

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deal. There's something called Rewards Vault. The Rewards Vault is going

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to allow a member to set up their own profile. They are going

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to answer questions, you are going to get those answers, you're going to be able

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to target those members and you're going to reward them inside your club,

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inside your spa, and outside of the club and outside of the

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spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their

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monthly dues and to be rewarded properly for the

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actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't be

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Promotion Vaults. Your answer, Trust me, this is real.

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Pivot into Revere and how you got on to the

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investing side. Yeah, so as I

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mentioned, I started my injury prevention sports

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rehabilitation clinics in 2009. Around

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2013, 2014 in Colorado, a lot of the

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reimbursement rates had shifted from a fee for service to a

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fee for visit model. And so we were getting significantly

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impacted based on what our reimbursements were through traditional

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health insurance. And so we're exploring with a lot of different types

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of models. But ultimately what it was skewing us to

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was a high volume type of clinic as opposed to

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providing the patient with the type of care service that we

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originally envisioned. And so I made the decision back in

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2021 that rather than be a high volume clinic, I wanted to

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be more on the like technology layer that was helping with

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implementing a lot of these types of interventions that could service a

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broader community but also allow for more cost efficient

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access to care. So decided to wind down my clinics in

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2021, sold my clinic in Boulder

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and started working for the patent and licensing team at CU's

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Healthcare Innovation Fund. Was on that team while I was getting my MBA at

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the University of Colorado Boulder, then got brought on to Revere

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to be their head of investments. That was back in 2023

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at Revere. We were a very niche healthcare oriented

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fund focusing on oral health systemic disease. So I was

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leading Their investment process, negotiations,

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portfolio management, assisting with fundraising and

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investor relations. And it was

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interesting because it was very niche focused. You're servicing a

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lot of the corporate partners within the industry. A lot of our LP base were

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clinicians or DSO groups. And so you're

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identifying technologies that we could help forward face through those

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clinical groups or that might get acquired by one of those corporate entities.

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And so we could invest in anything that had applicability within the oral health

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sector as long as there was clinician input, clinician oversight

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into it. So it could be digital technology, could be medical device

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therapeutics, kind of a broad way of application, as long as it had

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applicability in the industry. And these are all like early stage

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companies or they were some. The latest stage

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that we invested in, we invested in a company at the series C level called

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Biome Salivary Diagnostic, the majority of which were

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at the seed level. We had a couple pre seed companies

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couple that we invested in at series A or series B majority

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being seed level though. Got it. And how did you,

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how do you enjoy that? Because, you know, I've, I've swung

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my bat in venture capital. I like to call it

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adventure capital because each deal is an

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adventure in and of itself. So how did you feel about,

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you know, having conviction about a company being head of investment?

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So you kind of, you know, that's like on your book, so to speak, right?

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Yeah. And I think in private equity or venture capital a lot of

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people are, are tattooed with the

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deals that they do and that kind of doesn't leave them.

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But at the same time, venture capital is a numbers game

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and not every deal is going to work out. I thought I was going to

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bat a thousand, about 250, maybe 300 max.

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So how did you feel about making those early stage investments and

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getting comfortable with valuations and Pre

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Revenue and PowerPoint slides and Excel models that

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all have like hockey stick projections? Yeah.

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Was it the, the rule of projections? At the early stages those

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projections tend to be wrong. But you're trying to test your own

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biases or whether the, the executive team

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has the ability to execute on their strategy. Even if you know that those, those

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projections are going to be wrong. I think the thing that I really love about

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stage investing is at the early

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stage of elite level performance coaching. As I mentioned,

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with a lot of our athletes, they were developmental athletes, you're looking for

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a certain personality archetype and there's a lot of parallels between a high

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performing athlete and a high performing founder that have

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synergistic personality nuances. Or qualities that

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you can evaluate. So you're really growing conviction in those

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individuals and are those individuals that you're really excited about

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potentially working with and facilitating their growth.

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Where the early stage investing at Revere and then now what we're doing at

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our current fund is that you're trying to be

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operational support. There's statistics that show with high performing

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athletes that the higher level of aptitude that they get, the less and less

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feedback they actually need. So you're not necessarily trying to be

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micromanager of inserting yourself into their process of how to

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build a strong or great business, but

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you're trying to be there as a support system to them based

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on the expertise or experience that you have within the industry. So at Revere,

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where we had this like particular lens within the industry,

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we had a lot of relationships with the large DSOs and a lot of

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relationships with the large corporate partners. You can help curate

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the support that you're providing to those founders about

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what it is that those groups are looking for,

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the problem sets that they're struggling with and the things that are going to

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get them excited about potentially partnering or acquiring those

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technologies in the future. And we could then take that

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feedback into our investment process to select technologies that

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fit that criteria and then be able to select which founders are we

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most excited about partnering with that we have conviction

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that can grow and be a serviceable technology for

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the industry. I mean that's kind of, it's pretty

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interesting because there are some healthcare services

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funds that have a lot of the Blue Cross

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Blue Shield as limited partners. I think what

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they do is they basically look at a deal and say, hey, would you buy

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this? And kind of calibrate their revenue

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pipeline based on almost like

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standing invoices? Like yeah, if you guys fund this, we'll will. Will

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distribute it. So it's kind of like you had a little bit of like

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inside baseball going on there to an extent to like

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guarantee some, you know, throughput and distribution.

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Yeah, we had, we had relationships with a lot of the payers that service the

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oral health industry as well. And they would invest in things

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that they knew that they were going to cover. And so if it was

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servicing their patient base that they were helping the forward

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face the reimbursement on, they could also take advantage of being an investor

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in that technology. And then some of those do do acqu. Acquisitions as well.

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And so potentially if it grew and was utilized very heavily across

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their payer or patient base, then they could potentially acquire it

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and bring it in house. How many how many

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investments did Revere make? So our

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portfolio when I left was 47 companies.

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Wow, dude, that's crazy, bro. Yeah, I was there for two

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and a half years. I made 30, 32 investments.

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And of that 32, I think

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about 17 were new investments. So it was a

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high cadence. They were set up as a rolling fund structure. So it was like

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one to three new investments a quarter, one to three reinvestments a

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quarter. Just so people, just so people understand how many

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deals you have to look at to make that kind of volume of

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investing. Give us like a, give us a number. How many deals

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you've crossed your desk, you know, in a given year. Yeah,

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it's, it's funny because like we would see stuff outside the

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industry too that founders would try to loosely apply. So I would say in

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the time that I was there two and a half years, I probably looked at

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about 2000 deals, but like you're seeing about

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1200 that have applicability within the industry

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and some that like we wouldn't move like we didn't do a lot of

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consumer products while I was there. So it was like a consumer product would

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automatically be like something that we wouldn't move forward with,

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but we'd still take a look at just to have insight into the industry. Yeah.

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So just for some quick math for our audience here, look

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at 1200 deals. Do32. It's like three out of a hundred.

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Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot to

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digest I think, to figure out who the winners potentially are.

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Yeah. And the other thing I would add to that, that would sometimes be

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challenging at a small fund like we were, or small team fund that we

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were. Was that you looking through your own investment criteria? But

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we would always so forward face to some of our corporate partners for potential

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partnerships. And so we'd be doing diligence as it relate to our own investment

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criteria, but we'd also be doing diligence if it could be a potential fit for

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a corporate partner even if we weren't going to necessarily

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invest in it. Yeah. It sounds

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like kissing several rings at the same time.

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Yeah, yeah. And then what propagated the move to,

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to, to raise the OLA fund. Yeah. So

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my background is in sport and health and wellness,

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broader healthcare industry. And

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there was, there was part of me that I had been at Revere for two

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and a half years. I didn't want my

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venture reputation to just be tied to a

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particular niche vertical. I wanted to have a broader, broader influence, which

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is why I moved into Venture capital in the first place.

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Revere is in the process of raising their fund 3. So it was a good

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time for me to transition out, to be able to do my own thing as

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there was going to be new relationships that were starting to get formed on their

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fund side that I didn't necessarily want to start and

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then transition out down the road. And

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not to mention, when you look at the healthy aging

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longevity ecosystem, it's a

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very attractive space right now. There's a lot of new technologies that are

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being developed, a lot that are getting funded, and something that I

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definitely wanted to be a part of that, that wave

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of proactive health as opposed to what's historically

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been funded, which is on the still servicing the

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traditional healthcare model. It's a good opportunity to move into the space.

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Yeah, I do feel like, well, I guess probably

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anytime you put money to work in, in venture capital,

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you're kind of assuming that there's going to be a big market

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for like, you know, the whole peptides and

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NAD and GLP ones. You know, at this point, I think

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it's still kind of the wild west of definitely, you know,

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regulation, you know, ingredients,

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consistency, controls,

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who knows? But that's great. So just give us

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a little background for the people who don't understand

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what it takes to raise a fund because, you know,

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just make a statement here. You know, when somebody raises $1 billion,

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that didn't happen overnight, you know, as a private equity fund. So when you go

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in and ask them for capital, you know, the lens that they have

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is like, man, I just worked my ass off for a couple of years trying

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to raise this money. I'm not just like, doling it out, you know, without

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a high level of, of scrutiny. So what does it take to,

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to raise a $35 million fund in this current market? And,

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you know, you've got a pseudo track record, but probably a lot of

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your deals from Revere are still kind of tbd. So how do you work through

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that? Yeah. So, yeah, to your point, fundraising is

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obviously, it's a challenge, especially in current,

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current landscape, current environment. And part of that is just the lack of

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liquidity that's occurred within private markets over the last couple

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years. It just leaves a lot of LPs still waiting

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for those liquidity events to occur so they could redeploy back into

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either new funds or new technologies. Time frame that

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you typically see is anywhere from 12 to 36

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months that it takes to raise a fund. Size matters,

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industry focus matters, and experience

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of the team matters. I'm fortunate that

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I'm surrounded by some very, very good, accomplished people

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that know the industry really well that have had experience

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raising funds in the past that have either been on the hedge fund

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side, the private venture side or the family office

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side. And so a lot of early stage fundraising, especially

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for early funds, fund one, fund twos especially.

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It's a lot of relationships that you do have. Our

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relationships that we're curating is from health and

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wellness founders, executives, professional athletes,

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and then there's some clinical elements at play within there because some of

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my advisors are leading researchers in the healthy

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and aging space or in the sport performance world. That

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allows us both good deal flow that we see internally within

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the fund, but then also strong connections within the industry that

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have a passion and an interest for the space. So yeah,

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most of it is through individuals and family offices that we're curating,

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but it's all people that have experience and passion for the industry as well.

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This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.

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We are partnered up with a company called Higherdose.

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00:21:10,550 --> 00:21:13,910
Higherdose.com they are the leader in

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00:21:14,150 --> 00:21:17,110
workout recovery products, infrared technology,

339
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LED light masks, neck enhancers, and

340
00:21:21,510 --> 00:21:25,230
other products such as PEMF mats and sauna

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00:21:25,230 --> 00:21:28,470
blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout

342
00:21:28,470 --> 00:21:31,910
recovery train yet, your time and your stop

343
00:21:32,070 --> 00:21:35,590
is now. You got to get these products in there before these workout

344
00:21:35,590 --> 00:21:38,830
recovery and spas end up saturating your market.

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00:21:39,150 --> 00:21:42,750
Having your members walk out of the club and going into one of their locations

346
00:21:42,750 --> 00:21:46,390
for 200 bucks per month where they're paying 39 to

347
00:21:46,390 --> 00:21:50,230
you. Let's become an expert in workout recovery. If we

348
00:21:50,230 --> 00:21:53,630
are already an authority in workouts higher dose,

349
00:21:53,950 --> 00:21:57,630
check it out. There's a wholesale code and we look

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00:21:57,630 --> 00:22:00,910
forward to helping you augment your products and services

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00:22:01,540 --> 00:22:05,180
to meet the demands of your members. And hey, let's get people

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00:22:05,180 --> 00:22:08,940
happy, healthy and sweating. And the recovery should be

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just as good as the workout.

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And now in closing, give us the background on the

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Ola Capital. So

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Ola Ola is Hawaiian for to live, to thrive.

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So we're focusing on healthy aging, optimizing health span.

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Longevity ties into it, but it's we're already keeping people alive longer.

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We're trying to focus more on the gap that's occurring between health

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span and lifespan. I think right now it's the largest it's ever been in history

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and the US leads that category at 12 and a half years, meaning somebody

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lives over a decade of life in a disease state. So

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we're leaning into our Elite athlete roots

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of a lot of technologies start in

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the elite athlete market. They serve as kind of a proof of concept of showing

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performance gains, incremental performance gains that then find their way

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into mass market adoption. And so we're tying in

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professional athletes and ways that we can create visibilities for

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the brands in our portfolio while we're validating a lot of the

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technologies that we're investing on the front end through our clinical researchers,

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clinicians. But for the whole goal of how do we optimize

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aging, how do we address an aging demographic, and how do we

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close the gap between healthspan and lifespan. Awesome. All

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right, so you'll send us the press release when the funds first

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close so we can get that out, and hopefully we can be a

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generator of some interesting technologies and

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entrepreneurs who listen to the show. And

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congrats on what you're doing. Welcome to the Halo sector. Officially, it

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00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:54,000
sounds like you never left. So good to have a guy like you

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around. And here's to look at 2000 deals for us instead

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of us doing it. So enjoy that. Exactly. Appreciate all that you're

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00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:05,140
doing for the industry as well. It's great to have some, like, visibility,

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standardization and obviously the

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00:24:08,580 --> 00:24:12,340
collaboration that occurs between the health of active lifestyle community as well,

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as well as the clinical validation side. Yeah, definitely. Well, it's all

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00:24:16,140 --> 00:24:19,060
converging now finally, right? It's. It's like taking

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00:24:19,300 --> 00:24:22,340
26 years of talking about, like, hey,

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00:24:22,740 --> 00:24:26,420
maybe we should have our. Our patients go and

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00:24:26,580 --> 00:24:30,430
exercise. Maybe that. Maybe that'll help, you know? All right, man,

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00:24:30,430 --> 00:24:33,990
great to see you. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for having go Halo

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00:24:33,990 --> 00:24:34,350
later.

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00:24:40,750 --> 00:24:44,470
This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks. Your captain speaking. I am

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00:24:44,470 --> 00:24:48,070
the founder and managing partner at Integrity Square. We've been around

394
00:24:48,070 --> 00:24:51,790
now for 15 and 1/2 years. We have been helping

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00:24:51,870 --> 00:24:55,370
people like yourselves get capital, do mergers and

396
00:24:55,370 --> 00:24:58,930
acquisitions, consulting, strategic advice in the health,

397
00:24:59,010 --> 00:25:02,730
active lifestyle and outdoor halo sector, trying to

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00:25:02,730 --> 00:25:06,050
help as many entrepreneurs as possible get to the next level,

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00:25:06,610 --> 00:25:10,050
take that inflection point and be the force behind your growth.

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00:25:10,609 --> 00:25:14,170
We are helping companies that have at least $3 million of

401
00:25:14,170 --> 00:25:17,570
EBITDA, around $10 million of revenue, and

402
00:25:17,730 --> 00:25:21,140
we are positioned to help you get institutional growth capital

403
00:25:21,780 --> 00:25:25,140
or to negotiate deals with strategic partners.

404
00:25:25,380 --> 00:25:27,510
If you go to integritysq.com

405
00:25:27,850 --> 00:25:31,660
forward/isq, you can see our capabilities. Deck. Happy to set

406
00:25:31,660 --> 00:25:35,380
up a consultation at any time that is free of charge and

407
00:25:35,380 --> 00:25:39,140
we look forward to helping solve obesity, loneliness

408
00:25:39,140 --> 00:25:41,300
and diabetes. Go Halo.

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00:25:45,870 --> 00:25:56,590
Sam.