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Entrepreneur Profiles

Healthtech During Transformational Times: An Interview with Alice CFO Luiz Octávio Maluf

15 July 2020

Company: Alice 

Investors: Canary, KaszeK Ventures, MAYA Capital

Interview with:  CFO of Alice, Luiz Octávio Maluf Santos

Alice, a Brazilian healthcare provider led by André Florence, former CFO at 99, Guilherme Azevedo, Co-Founder of Dr.Consulta, and Matheus Moraes, former President of 99, recently raised a US$16m round from Canary, KaszeK Ventures, and MAYA Capital. LAVCA interviewed Luiz Octávio Maluf, CFO of Alice, to gain insights into the current state of the Brazilian healthcare landscape and Alice’s plans to create an end-to-end integrated benefits platform.

LAVCA: What was the core thesis that made you launch Alice?

Luiz Octávio Maluf: Our goal is to make people healthier and we have launched Alice to tackle a big and global problem: people want to be healthier and access high quality healthcare, but it is increasingly more expensive and inaccessible. So, our core thesis is to make high-quality health care accessible in the long term, by changing how people interact with their own health.

LAVCA: What insights have you gained from growing your provider network in the past 15 months? What have you learned that has enabled you to reduce your onboarding cycles and grow your infrastructure more rapidly?

Luiz Octávio Maluf: These 15 months have allowed us to learn a lot and really improve our product, our health teams, and our relationship with the providers in our community, which overall we call our network community. One of the most interesting learnings was that health providers and professionals are really open to new, human-centric care models, but most of them do not have the knowledge or a partner to make it happen, and we can be the partner to do it.

LAVCA: Will patients have the ability to choose the health team that will provide monitoring and continuity to their goals, or will the team be predetermined by the platform?

Luiz Octávio Maluf: The health team may vary according to the needs of each member, but they are all composed of at least a doctor, nurses and a nutritionist. Our mission is to make people healthier by changing the way they interact with health, and for that we must see each individual in a multidisciplinary, integrated and human way. That’s why people who buy Alice will be members, not patients.

LAVCA: Given that Alice aims to champion preventive care over diagnostic care, how have you thought of incorporating wellness and nutrition into your product offering?

Luiz Octávio Maluf: We want to change the way people deal with their health and both nutrition and wellness are key elements for this, as certainly is mental health. After joining Alice, members will meet their health teams to create their own action plans and goals. Such plans include wellness, nutrition and sleep, among other topics, and will be coordinated and monitored by the health teams.

LAVCA: How do you expect health insurance premiums to perform against the legacy services that are already in the market?

Luiz Octávio Maluf: Alice is more than health insurance, even though we are a duly registered insurance company selling health insurance, but it goes beyond that. Our initial product is premium, given our network and personalized service. Also, our price is compared to premium health insurances in the market, even though they don’t include the health teams we offer. However, we have a mission to make the world healthier, which will only be possible through affordability. So we expect our products to be more moderately priced versus incumbents’.