Episode 47
6% of Capital to Women's Health. 18 Years in Banking - Then She Left | Vasanta Pundarika, Lotuspring
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Vasanta Pundarika spent eighteen years as a healthcare investment banker. She started at Shattuck Hammond Partners, moved through Morgan Keegan and Raymond James, and co-founded the Healthcare Investment Banking Group at Matrix Capital Markets Group, advising on M&A, debt, and equity transactions from startups to multi-billion dollar companies. Then she quit and built Lotuspring — an advisory firm working directly with founders and CEOs in women's health and behavioral health. In this episode she tells Brandi Kolosky exactly what pushed her out. There were three things. She kept getting hired to sell companies she could see how to fix. She closed a transaction where every party at the table got paid and the patients in the middle got nothing — and she lay awake for weeks afterward. And then she noticed something in her residential behavioral health clients that nobody around her could explain: after the shutdowns, the men's units filled back up and the women's units didn't. She knew why. The women were holding jobs, kids, spouses, parents, and their spouses' parents. Nobody was going to hand all of that over and check into eight weeks of residential care. That question — where else are we missing women in healthcare — turned out to have one answer. Everywhere. Heart health, gut health, lung health, bone health, brain health. Women weren't even required to be included in NIH-funded clinical trials until 1993. This is a technical, financially literate conversation about why capital keeps failing women's health, what good governance actually looks like inside a mission-driven company, and why the phrase "no margin, no mission" only works if you also believe the reverse. Vasanta also does something rare on this show — she talks openly about her own experience as an investor. Including the fact that in her first fifteen or sixteen years in finance, not one person ever brought her an opportunity to invest in a fund. CONNECT WITH VASANTA → lotuspring.com → Substack: Say That Louder — saythatlouder.substack.com
Show Notes
00:00 — Welcome to the deep end 01:40 — Why you should keep listening: bridging impact and finance 02:03 — What prosperity actually means 05:15 — The boldest plunge: leaving 18 years behind 08:03 — Three sparks that made her leave investment banking 09:07 — Staging a business like staging a house 10:32 — The deal where nobody in the middle benefited 12:23 — The women's units that didn't fill back up 13:40 — Women weren't required in clinical trials until 1993 15:44 — Why healthcare is afraid of capital 16:44 — The impact panel that shut her down 18:06 — No margin, no mission — and the reverse 20:01 — Healthcare data that can't be analyzed 22:03 — Why regulation slows down the good companies too 24:06 — Built for a 150-pound white man 25:02 — When technology got between doctor and patient 26:42 — What good governance looks like in women's health 28:45 — How she chooses who to advise 30:19 — Her investment experience, in her own words 31:14 — "For 15 years, nobody ever offered me a fund" 33:46 — Investing in the infrastructure behind women's sports 35:16 — How she decides on an angel check 35:45 — Brandi's 90-day due diligence process 36:54 — What did you learn from the down month? 38:02 — Where to find Vasanta + "Say That Louder"
About the Guest
Vasanta Pundarika is the CEO and Founder of Lotuspring, a healthcare advisory firm working with founders, CEOs, and investors in women's health and behavioral health on long-term, sustainable growth strategy. She spent nearly two decades in healthcare investment banking — beginning at Shattuck Hammond Partners and continuing through Morgan Keegan and Raymond James, before co-founding and heading the Healthcare Investment Banking Group at Matrix Capital Markets Group, where she advised founder-owned, family-owned, and provider-owned healthcare businesses on M&A, capital, and exit strategy across deal sizes from early-stage startups to multi-billion dollar companies. She is a Strategic Advisor to Women's Health Horizons, a board member at Sakhi for South Asian Survivors, an NACD-certified director, a member of WBL and a CHIEF alum, an active angel investor and fund LP, and a Princeton graduate. She writes the Substack Say That Louder.
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