Michael Wert

Partner at define-ventures

Reviewed Updated Aug 30, 2026

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Location San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Check Size Rounds led/co-led with firm ranges of $750K-$6M+ (firm-level)
Social LinkedIn
Stage Focus
seed series-a series-b
Sector Focus
digital-health healthcare healthtech biotech health-services

Background

Michael Wert is a Partner at Define Ventures, a San Francisco Bay Area digital-health specialist firm founded in January 2020 by Lynne Chou O’Keefe 12. According to Define Ventures’ team page, Wert’s career prior to Define spans investment banking, management consulting, private equity, and venture capital in the healthcare sector 1.

Wert previously served as Managing Director at Longitude Capital in the firm’s Healthcare Technology & Services Venture practice 1. Before Longitude, he was in the Healthcare Group at Warburg Pincus, where the firm’s team page notes he held Buyout, Growth, and Venture roles 1. Earlier in his career he worked at McKinsey & Company as a consultant in Healthcare Systems & Services, and began his career at Merrill Lynch’s Global Healthcare Group as an investment banker 1.

Wert holds an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a B.A. from Whitman College in Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology, and Economics (with Honors, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) 1.

Stated Thesis

Define Ventures publicly positions itself as a specialist firm investing across “incubation, seed, Series A, and Series B” stages in digital health, framed around three pillars: “Unrivaled Expertise,” “Enduring Partnership,” and “Principled Approach” 2. The firm states: “the future of healthcare will be defined by those who bring together a deep understanding of the healthcare ecosystem paired with a technology-driven mindset” 2.

On Wert’s individual team-page bio, Define Ventures attributes his personal framing to three ideas. On innovation: “Defining healthcare means relentlessly working to close these gaps” 1. On partnership: he prioritizes being present with founders beyond board meetings 1. On leadership: “the best leaders…are usually the ones making everyone around them better” 1.

Define Ventures publicly categorizes Wert as an investment Partner alongside Chirag Shah, working with Managing Partner Lynne Chou O’Keefe and a small principal team (Hong Truong, Chuka Esiobu, Garrett Howard) plus Venture Partners Bruce Broussard, Frank Williams, and Carolyn Magill 3.

Inferred Thesis

Sample size caveat. Define Ventures does not publicly attribute specific deals to individual Partners on its website, and Wert has not been named as the lead investor in any contemporaneous press release identified during this research. The analysis below therefore reflects Wert’s role as one of two Partners at a firm whose portfolio and stated focus are public.

Sector: exclusively digital health. Every publicly listed Define Ventures portfolio company operates in healthcare technology, including Hims & Hers (NYSE: HIMS), Unite Us, Cohere Health, FOLX Health, Waltz Health, and Blackbird Health 245. Wert’s prior experience spans provider-facing services (McKinsey), payer and services deals (Warburg Pincus, Longitude), and both consumer-facing and enterprise health tech companies.

Stage: seed through Series B. Define Ventures invests from incubation through Series B and manages roughly $800M across six funds as of April 2023, when it closed Fund III and an Opportunities Fund totaling $460M 4. Wert’s Partner role covers early-stage checks; the Opportunities Fund handles growth-stage follow-ons in existing portfolio companies 4.

Prior-fund experience: growth-stage healthcare investing. Longitude Capital, where Wert was a Managing Director, and Warburg Pincus, where he was in the Healthcare Group, both focus on later-stage healthcare technology and services rather than Define’s early-stage niche 1. Wert’s Define role therefore represents a stage-shift down-funnel relative to his prior seats.

Founder pattern signal. Define publicly claims that “72% of their portfolio companies have customers within their coalition of major healthcare organizations” and has placed “senior talent, board members, or advisors at 2 in 3 portfolio companies” 2. This platform-heavy, enterprise-integration model is consistent with Wert’s McKinsey/Warburg background operating with large healthcare systems.

Analysis reflects the firm’s publicly listed portfolio at the time of research; deal-level attribution to Wert could not be verified from primary sources.

Portfolio

Because Define Ventures does not publicly attribute individual investments to specific Partners, the table below lists Define Ventures portfolio companies where Wert is presumed to have been an active team member. Deal-level source attribution to Wert personally is not available.

Company Year Stage Source
Hims & Hers (HIMS) ~2018 (founding proxy) Growth via Fund 25
Unite Us ~2013 (founding proxy) Growth via Fund 2
Cohere Health ~2019 (founding proxy) Growth via Fund 2
FOLX Health ~2020 (founding proxy) Incubated 2
Waltz Health 2022 $35M announced round 6
Blackbird Health 2024 $17M round 7

This table is limited to companies Define Ventures publicly claims on its firm materials 2. It represents a partial view of the ~21 companies the firm’s Managing Partner has publicly discussed, and it is not attributed to Wert individually.

In Their Own Words

Define Ventures attributes the following statements to Wert on his team-page bio:

  • On healthcare innovation: “Defining healthcare means relentlessly working to close these gaps” 1.
  • On leadership: “the best leaders…are usually the ones making everyone around them better” 1.

No independently sourced first-person interviews, podcast transcripts, or public speaking engagements attributable to Wert were located during this research. His publicly available voice is limited to the Define Ventures site bio.

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials specifically attributable to Michael Wert were found. Define Ventures’ website hosts founder-CEO testimonials that credit the firm generally (e.g., Andrew Dudum of Hims & Hers, Dan Brillman of Unite Us, Liana Guzman of FOLX Health), but those quotes do not name Wert individually 2.

Sources

  1. Define Ventures, “Team — Michael Wert.” Accessed August 2026. https://www.definevc.com/team/michael-wert↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  2. Define Ventures, homepage and “About.” Accessed August 2026. https://www.definevc.com/↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  3. Define Ventures, “Team.” Accessed August 2026. https://www.definevc.com/team↩

  4. Katie Jennings, “Define Ventures Raises $460 Million For Early-Stage Digital Health Investments,” Forbes, April 18, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2023/04/18/define-ventures-raises-460-million-for-early-stage-digital-health-investments/↩↩↩

  5. Business Insider, “The Founder of a Healthcare Venture Fund that Just Raised $200 Million…,” January 14, 2021. https://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-define-ventures-just-raised-200-million-for-second-fund-2021-↩↩

  6. Katie Jennings, “With $35 Million In Funding, Waltz Health Aims To Lower Drug Prices Working With – Not Against – The System,” Forbes, April 27, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2022/04/26/with-35-million-in-funding-waltz-health-aims-to-lower-drug-prices-working-with–not-against–the-system/↩

  7. Seth Joseph, “Blackbird Health Nests A Fresh $17 Million To Become The Gold Standard In Precision Mental Healthcare,” Forbes, February 21, 2024. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethjoseph/2024/02/21/blackbird-health-nests-a-fresh-17-million-to-become-the-gold-standard-in-precision-mental-healthcare/↩