At a Glance
3CC, formally Third Culture Capital, is an immigrant-founded, physician-led and diversity-certified venture capital firm investing in healthtech and techbio. Founded in 2021 and run from Boston, the firm invests at pre-seed and seed with follow-on into Series A and later rounds, and describes its remit as the confluence of healthcare, technology and access. Its stated purpose is to attack healthcare inequities and the needs of underserved populations, and it backs management teams whose own lived experience maps to the care gaps they are solving, a lens the firm calls third culture.
Check sizes run roughly $250,000 to $1 million, concentrated in the United States, across digital health, care delivery, biotechnology, medtech and applied AI in clinical settings, with adjacent consumer and fintech exposure where the business touches patient access or payments. Trackers count 15 to 18 portfolio companies, including Ciba Health, Intus Care, Mahmee, Voiceitt, Docosan, Simplifed, KeyWise and Zuri Fertility. The firm led Ciba Health's round announced in February 2023.
What distinguishes 3CC is the operator profile behind the capital. Founder and managing partner Julien Pham is a practicing physician and Harvard Medical School faculty member who co-founded RubiconMD, sold in a $190 million exit, and took Genprex through a Nasdaq IPO as president and COO. A standing investment advisory committee of practicing clinicians reviews deals, giving portfolio companies clinical validation and health-system introductions that a generalist seed fund cannot supply. The firm does not disclose fund size or assets under management.
“Physician-led, immigrant-founded VC targeting healthcare inequities and underserved populations.”
Third Culture Capital, which trades as 3CC, launched in 2021 out of Boston as an immigrant-founded, physician-led and diversity-certified fund dedicated to healthtech and techbio. The firm publishes no fund size or assets-under-management figure, and no fund close appears in the press coverage or investor databases reviewed, so its capital base remains unverified. The deployment pattern is documented: checks of roughly $250,000 to $1 million at pre-seed, seed and Series A into US healthcare and life-science companies, with follow-on capacity extending into later rounds. Third-party trackers count 15 to 18 portfolio companies to date, among them Ciba Health, Intus Care, Mahmee, Voiceitt and Docosan. 3CC led the funding round for functional-medicine platform Ciba Health announced in February 2023, one of the few rounds where it is named as lead rather than a syndicate participant. The thesis is explicit about structural health inequity: the firm targets management teams whose lived experience maps to the care gaps they are attacking, and screens for cross-cultural operating backgrounds as a diligence signal rather than a diversity checkbox.
3CC | Third Culture Capital primarily invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B+ stages. This means they focus on companies that are at the earliest idea or prototype phase.
3CC | Third Culture Capital is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Many of their portfolio companies are also based in this region, though they invest across geographies.
3CC | Third Culture Capital focuses on investments in Aerospace & Defense, Digital Health, Other, Consumer, Fintech. Their portfolio reflects deep expertise and networks within these sectors.
3CC | Third Culture Capital's typical investment check size ranges from $250K to $1M. Actual amounts may vary based on the stage, sector, and specific opportunity.
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