Wisdom Ventures Closes New $78M Fund for AI Wellness Startups

The firm, an early backer of OpenAI and Anthropic, will write $1 million to $5 million checks to roughly 40 startups building AI tools for health, wellness and connection

Wisdom Ventures has closed an oversubscribed $77.7 million Fund II, a major leap from its $10 million debut fund, with former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy joining as senior venture partner.

The early-stage venture capital firm is focused on tech-enabled well-being, writing $1 million to $5 million checks into roughly 40 startups that leverage AI to improve health, wellness and connection.

Wisdom first closed Fund II at $16 million last June.

The fund’s limited partners include LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp, Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield and Away co-founder Jen Rubio, along with other founders and investors.

Fund I backed 38 startups, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Function Health.

“The health and well-being challenges we face require more than traditional interventions — they demand a fundamental shift in how we build and interact with technology,” Dr. Vivek Murthy said. “I am proud to join Wisdom Ventures to back founders who are designing the next generation of technology to foster genuine human connection, support physical and mental health, and cultivate long-term resilience.”

In keeping with its mission, the firm touts a “whole-founder” model that pairs capital with meditation retreats and monthly community check-ins.

The fund lands at a time when wellness capital is showing up at scale. Fitness and wellness startups pulled in $2 billion across 44 deals in 2025, moving from the eighth-most funded digital health category to third, per Rock Health’s year-end report. 

Wearable ring maker Oura alone accounted for nearly half of the haul with its $900 million round, the largest digital health deal Rock Health has logged since it started tracking the space in 2011. Even taking out Oura, category funding rose 13%, with longevity platform Function, virtual nutrition service Nourish and sleep tech brand Eight Sleep all closing sizable rounds.

The mental health and connection arena is drawing other investors, too.

Founders Row, an early-stage operating platform launched by former Orangetheory Fitness mega-franchisee Jamie Weeks, has called brain health and “intentional disconnection” an area in wellness that he’s bullish on, pointing to sold-out corporate wellness programs, year-long waitlists for digital detox retreats and rising mental health spending. 

The platform backed Ohm Health, maker of a screen-free nervous-system regulation lamp, earlier this year — a deal Weeks has called the firm’s first centered on intentional disconnection, but “not the last.”