When my son, Duke, was diagnosed with autism in 2018, I set out to find the best therapies, treatments, and schools to support him. What I discovered was a fragmented, outdated system that left families navigating long waitlists, inconsistent care, and limited answers. Despite decades of research, we still lacked a cohesive framework to understand, diagnose, and treat autism effectively.

That experience became the catalyst for the Autism Impact Fund (AIF).

In 2020, I joined a group of parents, investors, and scientists from the 2m Foundation’s COMPASS network who shared a common belief that private industry and venture capital could accelerate the pace of innovation for autism and related conditions. Together, we created AIF to catalyze a new model of healthcare investing, one that combines scientific rigor, operational excellence, and financial discipline to deliver measurable impact.

Today, AIF stands at the intersection of capital, innovation, and community. Through Fund I, we built a diversified portfolio of high-performing companies advancing diagnostics, digital health, therapeutics, and care delivery. Our ecosystem-driven approach has allowed us to create value across biology, behavior, and environment, uniting stakeholders to scale better solutions and drive measurable change. These investments have already achieved meaningful results, cutting wait times by 83%, expanding point-of-care reach to over 800,000 individuals, and advancing 49 clinical trials across our portfolio.

Our focus now extends to encompass behavioral health, mental health, and complex chronic conditions, the most common of which affect 1 in 4 individuals and collectively represent a $1T+ market. These conditions share the same structural inefficiencies we set out to solve in autism: poor coordination, limited data integration, and inequitable access to care.

AIF remains guided by four enduring values:

1. Invest in companies that will produce significant advancements in quality of life for individuals and families affected by autism, behavioral health, mental health, and complex chronic conditions.
2. Provide access to best-in-class services, diagnostics, and therapeutics that improve care quality and equity across these populations.
3. Apply rigorous investing criteria to deliver returns to all stakeholders, including affected individuals, their families, and investors.
4. Rewrite the impact investing equation, overlaying financial discipline and proven business strategies with scientific acumen to improve the status quo for individuals and families impacted by these conditions.

Our mission remains unchanged, but our reach has grown. AIF was founded to accelerate solutions for autism. With Fund II, we are accelerating solutions for all.