Sooah Cho

Sooah Cho is a Partner at SignalFire, where she leads investing in early-stage health and life sciences technology. She joined the firm in September 2023 from Underscore VC, the Boston-based B2B software venture firm where she had been an investor (rising from Senior Investment Associate to Principal). She is no longer on Underscore's active team and is referenced there as a "Former Underscore Principal." She describes herself as "a product builder, GTM strategist, and policy nerd turned investor."

Her path to venture blends operating and investing roles. She was a product leader at Devoted Health, the Medicare Advantage company now valued at well over $10B, and at CVS Health's digital innovation group, where she helped launch nationwide prescription-delivery and virtual-care products. On the investing side she worked on FinTech deals at Quona Capital, shaped digital-health investment theses as a Rock Venture Partner with Bain Capital, and earlier advised healthcare and biopharma executives as a strategy consultant at Michael Porter's firm (Monitor/FSG-affiliated work). Her résumé also touches the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

She holds a joint MBA from Harvard Business School and a Master in Public Policy (MPP) from Harvard Kennedy School, and earned her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College. At HBS she worked with founders through the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.

At Underscore she led sourcing and investing across FinTech, InsurTech, AI/ML, enterprise SaaS, and digital health, including life-sciences tech used by biopharma across the drug-development cycle. At SignalFire she has narrowed that aperture to a thesis centered on transforming how "biopharma companies develop, providers deliver, and payers pay for healthcare" through AI-enabled innovation.

• Invests at the earliest stages — pre-demo and pre-traction — looking for "leading indicators rather than the results of success."
• Core thesis: "reimagine how biopharma companies develop, providers deliver, and payers pay for healthcare" through AI-enabled innovation across the health and life-sciences value chain.
• Sub-themes: AI/ML in drug development and regulatory workflows, precision/hyper-personalized medicine, disease modeling and longevity, and healthcare data infrastructure/interoperability.
• What makes her say yes: "uniquely talented founding teams," differentiated go-to-market strategies, and proprietary technology aimed at a massive opportunity.
• Personal motivation, in her words: "I want to invest in saving lives." She offers to bring founders into SignalFire's AI Lab and "invest in your journey at the earliest stages."