Funded: The VC Who Invests in Cancer Care From the Inside | Ben Freeberg, Oncology Ventures

About Oncology Ventures

📍 Austin, TX | 💰 Fund II: $62M | 🎯 Stage: Seed | 🏢 Focus: Data and Infrastructure for Cancer Care

Oncology Ventures is a seed-stage venture fund investing in data and infrastructure startups that are transforming cancer care. Founded by Ben Freeberg, the firm backs companies solving the operational, clinical, and administrative gaps that make cancer care more expensive and less effective.

The fund's LP base includes 22 health system partners that collectively treat 1 in 3 cancer patients in the US, giving portfolio companies direct access to the institutions they're trying to sell into. Portfolio companies include Risa, OncoveryCare, and Reimagine Care.

In This Episode

Ben Freeberg comes at venture capital from three angles most investors don't have: he's a trained VC, a former operator at a cancer startup, and a Stage 3 cancer survivor. In this conversation, he shares how those three lenses shape every investment decision he makes, why he thinks more than half of the 1,700 cancer deaths happening in the US every day are preventable, and what it actually takes to build a specialist fund from scratch.

✓ How Oncology Ventures built a LP base that doubles as a customer and distribution network
✓ What most cancer care founders get wrong about pricing and giving things away for free
✓ The difference between a bad ask and a good ask when working your investor network
✓ What Ben looks for in early-stage founders beyond the standard VC checklist

Key Takeaways

1. The Opportunity Isn't Where Most Investors Are Looking

"1,700 people die every day in the US of cancer. Roughly 1,000 of those death - more than 50% - are preventable. And preventable, to clarify, with data infrastructure technology we have today." — Ben Freeberg

Most venture dollars chasing cancer go toward blockbuster drugs and novel therapies. Ben's argument is that the bigger near-term opportunity is elsewhere: in the operational and infrastructure gaps that cause people to be diagnosed too late, treated in the wrong place, or managed outside of evidence-based protocols. These aren't moonshot problems. They're solvable today.

Oncology Ventures backs companies that can demonstrate ROI with existing reimbursement codes and existing budgets. That means no waiting for regulatory approval, no speculative commercialization timelines. The tradeoff is that the upside profile looks different. You're not swinging for 2,000x. But you're investing in capital-efficient businesses that can track and attribute their impact from day one.

2. If You Can't Explain How You Make Money Today, You Won't Make It Through Diligence

"This is the number one reason I believe that deals fall out of our diligence pipeline." — Ben Freeberg

Ben's commercialization framework has two parts:

First: how do you make money right now, given the rules on the field? Existing CPT codes, existing budgets, existing workflows. If a founder can't answer that clearly, the conversation usually ends there.

Second: what changes about your business model at scale, when you have an engaged population using your platform? That's where the more interesting monetization stories emerge: attribution of ROI, net new revenue generation, outcomes-based contracts.

If you can articulate how you make money today and what the business looks like when it works at scale, you're already ahead of most of the deals Ben sees.

3. Your Investors Are Only As Useful As the Asks You Bring Them

"It is genuinely what you put into it, what you get out of it." — Ben Freeberg

Ben tracks this closely: the founders in his portfolio who close the most introductions to strategic health systems are the ones who show up with specific, well-prepared asks. Not "do you know any cancer centers we should talk to?" but "we're expanding into Georgia — do you know any community oncology clinics outside Atlanta?" That level of specificity lets Ben act immediately. He described a near 100% double opt-in rate on intros structured that way.

The flip side is that vague asks produce vague results. If you're asking your investor to do the work of figuring out who you should meet and why, you've already lost the efficiency that makes a warm intro valuable. Come in with the name, the reason, and the collateral ready to go.

4. Every Interaction Is Part of the Diligence

"We will not invest into a company until we shake someone's hand in person. I need to know you are real." — Ben Freeberg

Ben won't write a check until he's met a founder face to face. That rule is about more than just verifying someone exists, it's about the signal you get from spending real time with someone outside of a structured pitch meeting. How do they treat his EA during the scheduling process? How do they handle a follow-up that takes longer than expected? Do their emails match the person they present themselves to be on a call?

For founders, the implication is straightforward: the fundraising process starts the moment you send the first email. Ben noted that every touchpoint — the thoughtfulness of your outreach, the promptness of your follow-ups, how you treat the people around your investor — is telling a story about how you operate. The founders who raise the best rounds aren't just the ones with the best metrics. They're the ones who treat every interaction like it counts, because it does.

Reference Links

• Oncology Ventures: Learn more about Ben's fund and their portfolio of cancer care startups: https://oncology.ventures
• Oncology Ventures Substack: Ben's newsletter covering cancer care investing, company theses, and stand-up comedy: https://oncologyventures.substack.com

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