Q&A with Vital View Technologies co-founder Ray Fraser
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Ray Fraser is a co-founder of South Bend-based Vital View Technologies. Spurred by his brother’s diagnosis with type one diabetes, resulting in class two heart failure and stage four kidney disease, Fraser connected with Tom Pratt, an electrical engineering research professor at the University of Notre Dame. Through his research, Pratt had developed a product that offered patent-protected heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure monitor for hospital and home use. The company plans to seek FDA clearance in 2025.
Venture capital funding for Black-owned businesses skyrocketed to record highs in 2021 following the Black Lives Matter movement and have since dwindled to 2019 levels, according to data from Crunchbase. Vital View raised $5.5 million in 2023, in what is now described as the worst fundraising year for Black founders in recent history.
Fraser, who is nominated in the Rising Entrepreneur category at the upcoming TechPoint Mira Awards, talked to Inside INdiana Business about his fundraising experience, being Black in med-tech as well as what it would take to foster a VC community that advances the cause of Black founders.
How do you feel?
It feels good. I have to admit it. It definitely feels good to be out of fundraising mode, especially when we look back on how crazy 2023 was. We just feel very fortunate to have so many great investors believing in the mission that we’re on and joining us on this great journey.
This is our second funding round. When we first spun out of the University of Notre Dame in 2021, we raised a $1.6 million round.
What are some challenges you’ve had to overcome being Black in tech?
There’s Black in tech and then there’s Black in health care which gets even smaller, and then you’re talking about Black in med-tech and now you’re really, really, really tiny. So I would say having peers to even speak to has been a little bit of a challenge just because the group is so small. My outlook is that I can be the first and this can potentially open up doors for others; if there’s not an example set, try to set it. I always take a positive spin on things.
What are the ways that you overcome the challenges?
I would say leaning on other ways of developing relationships. As a team, we try to dive into the fact that we’re Midwest-based, we’re out of Notre Dame, we’re basting in the Indiana tech scene. So although there might not have been a personal connection, engaging based on commonality has helped make a difference.
For example, the Notre Dame base is very passionate about innovations coming out of the university. On the Indiana side, they’re really passionate about providing resources to entrepreneurs, retaining talent and letting them know they don’t necessarily have to go to the coast; they can do it here. So realizing we’re all a part of the same mission, and that we’re all trying to drive it forward has been very helpful.
How do you think race has impacted Vital View’s access to funding, if at all?
Are there some investor groups where we might not be able to get on the phone just by sending out a deck? Of course. There are some that are going to underestimate us. But what has allowed us to kind of overcome those situations is putting more of an emphasis in getting warm introductions and getting to meet investors in person.
When we put that strategy first, we were able to find a lot of success. If I can get into a room with someone or even give the relationship time to develop, not needing a check right away, I’ve found that when you’re able to build a relationship, build trust, that’s who people invest in. A lot of our investors come from here in the Midwest, and a majority of them are investors that we’ve met face-to-face and spent a lot of time with.
Presenting a well-rounded team is also helpful. I got my MBA at Notre Dame. My background is pretty much business; my undergrad was a double major in finance and marketing. So making sure that I had a great CTO who had an understanding of the underlying technology that we were producing, making sure that I had a great COO that had a great understanding of the regulatory pathways and necessary clinical activities, and then when it came to a market understanding, having a chief medical officer who happens to be one of the top cardiologists in the country, never hurts.
So not just meeting these investors in person and building those organic relationships, but also letting them get excited about the team I’ve been able to build around me as well, I’ve found to be very, very helpful.
Speaking about 2023, it’s been called the worst year in recent history for Black founders. Why do you think the VC community continues to sideline Black founders?
Having grown up as a Black man, I noticed that our path is never truly the same as others unfortunately. Some of the opportunities that some are afforded, you know, we might have to come up with a different strategy. And I think it’s going to be by figuring out the few that were able to raise and then figuring out what worked, what didn’t, almost like developing a fundraising strategy playbook for diverse teams and minority founders. It’s always going to be a little different, and if we’re able to acknowledge that I’m confident that we’ll probably see some more success.
I’ve heard everything from, “Okay there needs to be more Black fund managers and more Black limited partners.” Black lead fund managers are definitely a huge thing because getting someone to lead a round is a really big deal. That relationship is mainly built on trust.
The broader question we’re gonna have to ask is, “How do we figure out ways of developing that trust?” A lot of good companies didn’t get funded, so that’s another reason why we feel very grateful to be in the position we’re in today.
In your fundraising experience, have you been able to contact other Black founders who have successfully raised funds?
I personally actually don’t know a lot. There are definitely Black founders out there receiving capital, but they’re almost like a unicorn in themselves.
That’s one of the things I want to change. Ever since we raised our $1.6 million round in 2021, I’ve been on a Community Impact Fund that invests anywhere between $5,000 to $20,000 in businesses starting up in the South Bend area. Minority entrepreneurs want to be able to see somebody in the room. And also when you’re in the room, you’re able to then help people in terms of, “Alright, this is how you adjust your deck, focus more on this, don’t focus on this, etc.”
So there are a few companies that now that we’re at the seed extension stage that are currently in the pre-seed stage, that I’m helping to advise as well as other companies out of Notre Dame that have reached a similar stage.
First thing I did after we raised our round, I got on the phone with the founder of Five to Nine, a Notre Dame alum, and they raised money in 2022. We traded strategies and she told me about some great programs like Google for Startups. There’s another one called Transparent Collective that I then pass on to these pre-seed startups. When you go to certain cities, I’m sure that the community is stronger. Like I know Atlanta is doing a lot. Houston, for example, is doing a lot of great things. But if we’re gonna really break this thing open, it’s going to be more networks.
One highlight is what Harlem Capital is doing on the East Coast. They invest in diverse founders, as well as Precursor Ventures out of San Francisco. Here in Indiana, we have Pier 70 Ventures. Sean Hopkins, he is former managing director of Eli Lilly’s venture fund. So Pier 70 is the first time he’s spinning out on his own, and he was one of the co-leads, for our round, along with Notre Dame’s venture fund, where I happened to be an entrepreneur-in-residence before starting up this company.
Are there currently any VC communities for Black founders who are looking for information on how to successfully raise funds?
I would say that one has been kind of tough. Transparent Collective that I mentioned earlier is one, but they’re small, and I’m not sure how many Black founders they’re able to take into each of their cohorts, but it’s a great start.
The next I would say is powered by gener8tor called Prosper Health Tech Accelerator out of Birmingham, Alabama, targeted at minority founders. So there are some resources sprouting up that don’t just give one-off advice but go through the entire process with you, that’s what’s needed.
With the very little success Black founders are experiencing, is it a matter of the product offering not being very viable, or Black founders just not participating in the fundraising as much?
I think it has more to do with us being able to pass on our success strategy to other founders. If we did a pitch deck breakdown for Vital View, other entrepreneurs would be able to see some of the things that really make us stand out. We’re going after a huge market. When you talk about patient-care and congestive heart failure, it’s something that transcends race in a lot of ways. If you’re dealing with a fund manager on the other side of the table, who has personal experience with that, it’s a different way of connecting with people when it’s their loved ones at stake. If you’re bringing a technology solution to the market that’s going to have an impact on patient outcomes and decrease costs, that’s a game changer.
The technology is another big thing. We have about nine utility patents based on federal research. One of the things I recommend to minority founders is to go to their local research university and look in their tech transfer office to see what kind of technologies these universities are getting funding for and which ones are ready to be commercialized, and the schools are looking for an entrepreneur who’s going to take it out and figure out all the problems. Taking this route gives you something that is truly dependable and also gives you a built in network right away.
Every state has at least one. In Indiana for example, we’re blessed to have three; we have Purdue, IU and Notre Dame. Each of these get about hundreds of millions of dollars each year to do federal research from the Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, etc. These faculty researchers are working in their labs, coming up with the next big discovery. Once they’ve accomplished that, there’s typically what’s called either tech transfer, tech licensing or a tech commercialization office. At Notre Dame, it’s called the IDEA Center. If you go on their website, there will be a list of technologies with descriptions of how they work and what they could possibly do. And they’re actually looking for entrepreneurs to come along and say, “Hey, that’s cool. I think I can figure out a market for that.”
What kind of investors do you look out for?
I want to work with those investors that are passionate about changing health care for the better. I think it’s one of the things that really excites me about the space, especially when I think about breaking down barriers. I think that health care technology or our innovation within health care, is an area that can potentially bring us all together in a way that hasn’t materialized in other industries.
Congratulations on your nomination at the Mira Awards. How are you feeling about your chances of winning?
It’s kind of cool. It’s kind of surreal. I’m currently in D.C., speaking at this Med-Tech Innovator event, where we’re going to be pitching tomorrow. And I remember when I used to look at all these events like it’d be so cool to be a part of that one day and for us to be in the mix now, it means a lot.
I gotta say there’s some tough competition but I’m glad we’re nominated. Just to even be associated with that group is pretty awesome. I think we have a good shot. I really do.