Ryan Schuler

Ryan Schuler is Senior Managing Director and firm lead at Ascension Ventures, the St. Louis–based strategic venture capital firm affiliated with Ascension, one of the largest non-profit health systems in the United States. He joined the firm in 2002, shortly after its inception, and has spent more than two decades there, specializing in investments across the healthcare services sector. Today he helps lead a firm that manages over $1 billion in capital and has backed more than 80 healthcare companies.

Before entering venture capital, Schuler worked at A.G. Edwards (the St. Louis brokerage and investment bank) in its mergers and acquisitions investment banking group, and earlier at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the transaction support and audit practices. That combination of M&A, transaction advisory, and audit experience underpins his diligence-heavy, exit-oriented approach to healthcare investing.

Schuler earned his MBA from Washington University in St. Louis and his BS from Christian Brothers University in Memphis. Over his career at Ascension Ventures he has led a series of investments that produced large exits — most notably NaviHealth (post-acute care management) and The Ob Hospitalist Group (obstetric/gynecologic hospitalist services, acquired in 2017). In 2024 he was named to Global Venturing's Powerlist of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals.

• Invests in healthcare services and healthcare-technology companies, the core of Ascension Ventures' strategy as a health-system-affiliated strategic investor.
• Writes checks of roughly $10M–$20M, targeting companies from early-stage through late-stage/growth — a materially larger and later mandate than a typical seed/angel investor.
• Leverages Ascension's position as a large health system: portfolio companies gain access to a strategic customer and clinical partner, and the fund seeks businesses that can scale within that ecosystem (behavioral health, pharmacy, post-acute/home care, diagnostics, devices, care delivery).
• Emphasizes companies with a clear path to large exits — his track record (NaviHealth, OB Hospitalist Group) reflects a preference for building toward major acquisitions or strategic sales rather than early flips.