Pictured left to right: Krista Donaldson [Stanford Biodesign], Cyan Brown [Stanford Biodesign], James Bair [Baraka Impact Finance], Sara Anderson [Bay Area Global Health Alliance], Ravi Pamnani [SONA Global]

Watch the recording on Stanford Biodesign’s channel here.

 

As funding constraints reshape the global health landscape, innovators are facing an urgent question: how do they turn strong ideas and meaningful impact into a clear funding case that resonates with funders and investors?

This question shaped a recent Innovation and Health Equity Discussion Series session, Strategies and Pathways for Economic Viability for Scaling Health Innovations in Underserved Settings, hosted by the Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign, in collaboration with the Bay Area Global Health Alliance and Baraka Impact Finance. James Bair, partner and managing director at Baraka Impact Finance, in conversation with Sara Anderson, executive director of the Alliance, offered practical guidance on how founders and innovators can position their ventures for funding, sustainability, and scale in a rapidly changing capital environment.

“To help address these gaps and expand access to innovative health solutions, we need to figure out how to deploy capital both effectively and equitably,” Anderson said. “Part of that conversation is about translation — how to connect innovation to capital in a way that resonates.”

The discussion explored how the funding landscape is changing, where capital is flowing, what investors are looking for now, what it means to be investment-ready, and how for-profit, nonprofit, and hybrid organizations can build models that support long-term economic viability.

Key Practical Takeaways for Innovators

• Develop a strong communication muscle and a compelling team presence. A solid pitch deck, clear messaging, and a leader on the team who can confidently carry the story are core parts of investment readiness.
• Distill the value proposition. Be able to explain the problem, your solution, and why it is different in a way that is concise and easy for funders to grasp.
• Build a defensible three-year growth plan. Show how you expect to grow, what revenue or contracts could get you there, and be ready to defend those assumptions.
• Pair commercial traction with impact evidence. Investors want both a path to revenue and clear, monitorable indicators of social impact.
• Diversify revenue and payers. Funders want to see diversified revenue and payers, as well as a broader path to sustainability. Relying too heavily on public-sector payers without other diversified revenue sources can be a yellow flag for investors.
• Iterate and adapt the model or framing when needed. Case studies like Alliance member SONA Global and Signalytic show that scaling may require both repositioning the value proposition and rethinking the business model to better align with investor priorities and commercial reality.

 

What’s Changed: A More Demanding and Defined Capital Environment

Baraka Impact Finance works at the intersection of founders and investors, helping ventures become investor-ready and supporting capital partners in identifying scalable, impact-driven opportunities in emerging markets.

Bair shared that the biggest shift that he has seen in the past 12 to 18 months has not been a lack of innovation, but a sharper focus on how capital is deployed and what sustainability looks like in practice. While he described the contraction of development financing from multiple donor countries as “devastating,” he also argued that the moment has brought overdue clarity. “There were some course corrections that were needed in terms of enterprises being accountable for their sustainability,” he said. “There’s a coming together of ideas about what the indicators are for success, for scalability, and for true impact.”

For founders, that means the environment is more demanding, but also more defined. A strong idea alone is no longer enough. Investors want evidence of sustainability, scalability, and impact, along with a more credible case for how a venture will grow.

 

What Investors Want: Becoming Investment-Ready

Against that backdrop, the challenge is not only generating strong data on impact and growth, but building the communication skills to turn that information into a clear and compelling case for investment.

“You’re supposed to be innovative, you’re supposed to be fleet-footed [nimble]. Don’t feel as if once you’ve laid out your financial plan or social impact plan, you’ve got to stay with it. You should be flexible.” — James Bair, Baraka Impact Finance

Bair noted that investment readiness is increasingly shaped by two converging tracks: indicators for non-dilutive grant funding success and those for more commercially oriented finance. On the commercial side, many impact-focused investors are looking for “a minimum of $1 million in gross revenue, an upward trajectory based on existing or likely contracts over a three-year period, and a path to breakeven within three to five years.” He added that investors are also looking for measurable and monitorable key performance indicators (KPIs) associated with social impact, as well as partnerships that can support growth over time.

He cautioned founders not to mistake public-sector alignment for a reliable funding pathway. “Relying on public health payers is a yellow flag for most of the investors we work with,” Bair said, urging founders to diversify revenue and payers since letters of intent and memorandums of understanding may signal interest, but rarely guarantee real financial traction. 

Bair emphasized that for many ventures, communication is a core part of investment readiness and is often the missing skillset that founders should aim to strengthen. “The less, the better,” he said. “The more data you put on [a slide in a pitch deck], the quicker you’re going to lose that investor.” Founders need to be able to explain how their solution is different, why it matters, and do so in a way that is concise and compelling. 

At the same time, Bair stressed that investors are not looking for rigid plans. “You’re supposed to be innovative, you’re supposed to be fleet-footed [nimble],” he said. “Don’t feel as if once you’ve laid out your financial plan or social impact plan, you’ve got to stay with it. You should be flexible.”

 

Case Studies in Adapting for Scale: SONA Global and Signalytic

Grounding the discussion in practical examples, Bair pointed to two case studies — SONA Global and Signalytic — that illustrate the complexity of moving from promising innovation to a scalable, fundable enterprise.

SONA Global

Ravi Pamnani, co-founder and COO of SONA Global, joined Bair to explain the company’s mission: developing lower-cost medical devices for complex trauma care in low-resource settings, including VATARA, a negative pressure wound therapy device, and AEFIX, a fracture fixation clamp.

“[Managing complex trauma] is not only an underserved problem, it’s also not an understood sector of the health system by investors,” shared Bair, noting how trauma-focused innovations can face an additional hurdle with investors, not because the need is unclear, but because the category itself can be difficult to position. 

One of SONA Global’s most important adaptations was shifting focus toward the postpartum hemorrhage application of its wound therapy device. “There you get interest, because many investors and philanthropies are already focused on maternal health, and postpartum hemorrhage is high on many funders’ radar,” Bair said. “That allows you to pivot the value proposition.”

For companies like SONA Global, Bair also emphasized that scaling means finding ways to preserve clinical quality while building distribution and pricing models that can support long-term growth. Pamnani echoed that point, emphasizing the role of evidence in building a competitive edge. “Demonstrating quality by investing in high-quality clinical trials that actually give you results that the low cost competitors won’t necessarily have is one way that we’re looking at how to build differentiation and competitive advantage,” Pamnani shared.

Signalytic

Founded out of the University of British Columbia, Signalytic developed a solar-powered platform for rural clinics in Africa that provides consistent electricity and internet access for essential connected tools and systems, including ultrasound, x-ray, and drug inventory. 

What made the company notable was its decision to significantly pivot its business model to expand both commercial scale and impact. “They have huge expansion aspirations…They realized that hardware sales alone, clinic by clinic, system by system, was not going to get them where they needed to go,” Bair said.

Rather than continuing to sell hardware directly to clinics and health systems, Signalytic is now in the middle of moving toward a model where the hardware is provided free of charge, while the company generates revenue by providing a communications channel for health data that can run through its hardware to provider and patient communities throughout Nigeria.

“It is a mirror of what we’ve seen with many companies in the last two to three years,” Bair said. “They can get traction, drive impact, and get that initial stage of investors, but if they’re going to scale and grow, they have to get a hold of the commercial revenue channels and really build those as robustly as possible.”

Bair also emphasized the importance of building leadership that reflects the markets a company serves, noting that Signalytic strengthened its team over time by adding African representation at the senior level.

 

Practical Recommendations: The Next Steps for Innovators Seeking Capital

“Be prepared to explain to potential funders, grantmakers, or equity investors how you plan to grow the venture and how you can defend it — and don’t be afraid to get feedback.” — James Bair, Baraka Impact Finance

Bair provided practical recommendations for innovators seeking funding: 

• Refine the pitch deck so it clearly and simply distills the problem and the solution. Bair stressed that clear communication takes repetition, discipline, and a simple deck.
• Build a credible three-year commercial vision. Investors want to understand how the venture expects to grow, what revenue or contracts could make that possible, and how those assumptions can be defended. Bair urged founders not to shy away from projections.
• Make sure the team has a strong, compelling voice that can carry the message. Bair urged teams to identify the “banner waiver” — the leader with the presence and communication skills to carry the story and make the strongest case to investors.
• Understand where capital is moving and where the gaps remain. The right funding source often depends on the stage the venture is in. Bair cautioned that development finance institutions are usually not the right match for pre-seed ventures, calling this “a glaring gap” in the system, while pointing to private-sector foundations, family offices, high net-worth individuals, and institutional grants as more promising sources of support depending on stage and structure.

In a more demanding funding environment, the takeaway was clear for innovators seeking capital: strong ideas still matter, but so do clear communication, credible growth plans, and the ability to connect innovation to capital in ways that resonate with investors.

 

Watch the recording of the session on Stanford Biodesign’s channel here. Learn more about the Alliance’s financing and investments work here.

 

Speaker Bios

James Bair, Partner and Managing Director, Baraka Impact Finance

At Baraka Impact Finance, Bair’s focus is on steering investments toward sustainable health solutions in emerging markets. Their team leverages private capital for impactful change at the intersection of finance, health, and technology. They’ve fostered a robust network that ensures the success of health sector advancements in some of the most challenging environments. His tenure as director of Stanford University Medical Center’s Department of International Medical Services and as the director of the NIH-designated Center of Excellence in Women’s Health at UC San Francisco enriched his understanding of the innate challenges in delivering affordable and appropriate primary, secondary, and tertiary care services across diverse markets and communities. His work with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on SRH services in Uganda grounded him in the realities of establishing sound clinical practices for protecting human health rights in societies that lack consensus on such rights. 

 

Sara Anderson, Executive Director, Bay Area Global Health Alliance

Sara Anderson is the first Executive Director of the Bay Area Global Health Alliance, serving in the role since 2020. With more than 30 years of experience in global health, international development advocacy, nonprofit management, partnership development, thought leadership, and strategic communications, she has a proven track record of driving impact. Before leading the Bay Area Global Health Alliance, Anderson was at the forefront of advocacy efforts in pioneering movements, including global surgery, raising awareness about debilitating burn injuries in low-income countries, and addressing the famine in North Korea. Her work on Capitol Hill and with various campaigns and nonprofits focused on shaping U.S. government policy and building strategic partnerships to influence policy and change lives. She holds a master’s degree from Georgetown University and has furthered her education through Stanford’s Designing for Social Systems program and the Maxwell School’s Transnational NGO Leadership Institute at Syracuse University. Additionally, she has served as a coach and partner in Stanford’s d.school Design for Extreme Affordability program.