Next Ventures Announces Strategic Investment in BranchLab to Accelerate AI Innovation in Privacy-Proactive, Precision Healthcare

AUSTIN, Texas and BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Next Ventures, a venture capital firm dedicated to advancing whole-person health, today announced a strategic investment in BranchLab, a provider of AI-native solutions for healthcare marketing. The investment underscores Next Ventures' commitment to reshaping healthcare into a more proactive, interconnected system, one that empowers patients and providers through precision awareness and compliant innovation.

BranchLab has quickly emerged as the leading AI-native technology company in healthcare marketing, setting a new standard in privacy-first, outcome-based advertising. BranchLab's Pathwai™ platform enables brands, agencies, and media partners to use their own non-health data to design, activate, and measure audiences optimized for real-world health outcomes - such as prescriptions, diagnoses, or healthcare visits. This capability transforms otherwise non-relevant datasets into high-value strategic assets across the healthcare marketing lifecycle. Built from first principles with a compliance-by-design architecture, BranchLab provides healthcare organizations with a responsible way to reach patients most likely to benefit from new therapeutics.

"BranchLab is not just another healthcare audience vendor. Their AI technology stack unlocks the power of non-health data to drive real health outcomes," said Lance Armstrong, Partner at Next Ventures. "Over the long term, the company is building more than a privacy-proactive solution. It is positioned to fundamentally change the marketplace by ensuring that ownership of the data used in healthcare marketing is distributed to those who own the customer relationship."

The investment reflects the alignment between BranchLab's mission and Next Ventures' long-standing thesis that 85% of health outcomes are shaped by upstream factors such as fitness, wellness, nutrition, awareness, and zip code, yet remain chronically underinvested. BranchLab's infrastructure shifts the system away from reactive 'sick care' toward proactive engagement, ensuring patients are reached earlier in their health journey and better able to make informed choices.

"From the outset, our work has centered on enabling the types of interactions that improve public health outcomes," said Josh Walsh, Co-Founder and CEO of BranchLab. "Our partnership with Next Ventures, an organization equally committed to fostering a more proactive and informed healthcare ecosystem, reinforces this objective. Together, we will accelerate the application of advanced deep learning AI methods to drive measurable health impact."

BranchLab is already working with leading brands in pharma, healthcare, government and retail demonstrating reach into highly qualified patient audiences. By unlocking the use of non-health data for healthcare marketing and enabling those closest to the consumer to generate proprietary healthcare segments, BranchLab is helping catalyze a more decentralized and robust marketplace, expanding patient reach while reinforcing compliance and trust.

As healthcare undergoes a generational shift toward health sovereignty, where individuals reclaim autonomy and proactive ownership of well-being, Next Ventures and BranchLab are united in their mission to equip the system with the infrastructure required to deliver on that promise.

About BranchLab

BranchLab is an AI-native technology company setting a new standard in privacy-first, outcome-based advertising for healthcare. Its platform, Pathwai™ enables brands, agencies, and media partners to design, activate, and measure audiences optimized to real-world outcomes such as prescriptions, diagnoses, or healthcare visits using non-health data. BranchLab operates in the United States with offices in New York, Colorado and San Francisco. For more information, visit www.branchlab.com.

About Next Ventures

Next Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm dedicated to founders redefining whole-person health. The firm sees the future of healthcare as a proactive and interconnected ecosystem—one where technology, data, and care come together to empower individuals to to control their well-being and longevity. For more information, visit www.nextventures.com.

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SOURCE BranchLab Inc