We are proud to close out the year with a recap of Alpaca VC’s WellTech in Motion, a multi-faceted event we co-hosted with The Biohack Lab to celebrate Miami, innovation, health and wellness.  

Held on Art Basel’s opening afternoon, the gathering drew an inspiring group of over 220 founders, investors, corporate executives and wellness influencers to Reserve Padel Miami’s beautiful island setting for padel tournament excitement, a series of expert-led talks keynoted by The Chopra Foundation’s Poonacha Machaiah in conversation with Dr. Deepak Chopra, experiential wellness product demos, an open bar, food and music.

Below, we’re excited to share our initial goals for the event alongside highlights and takeaways on the future of wellness, a space our team counts among its areas of interest. 

Goals

When we set out to host WellTech in Motion, we did so with a few key goals in mind. Chief among them, we wanted to:

• Provide an opportunity for Miami’s startup ecosystem to get together and build connection 
• Showcase Miami and its incredible, active lifestyle in a beautiful outdoor island venue, Reserve Padel, a leading destination for the increasingly popular sport of the same name
• Continue building Alpaca VC’s brand association and network in the Health+Wellness category

Highlights

The outcome was everything we had in mind – and more, including:

• A highly-curated group of than 220 investors, founders, operators and influencers, with approximately 25% from out of town  
• Three incredible speaker sessions focused on bleeding edge topics in health and wellness, including a keynote conversation about “The Quantum Self” with The Chopra Foundation’s Poonacha Machaiah in conversation with Dr. Deepak Chopra. Additional talks included biohacking and beauty entrepreneur Amitay Eshel’s presentation on the Economic Surge of Biohacking: A Decade of Opportunity and Mental Health 2.0: Why Digital Treatments May Soon Surpass Meds with Akili Co-Founder  Eddie Martucci.
• Product demos and experiences that allowed attendees to try biohacking firsthand
• A 12-team competitive padel tournament, where participants vied for $15,000 of art donated by Arkive Art Fund. Congratulations to the winning team: Sean Posner and Raleigh Smith.
• An all-star roster of sponsors: The Biohack Lab, The Chopra Foundation, Reserve Padel, Akili, Arkive, Mercury, Daversa Partners, Estate Agency, Headspace Coffee, E11even Vodka, Ritual Zero Proof, SpiritPunks, Tequila 512, Zeel and Breathe Media.  

Takeaways

From the speaker sessions to product demos and conversations throughout the afternoon, the following themes emerged. We believe each will be a key driver in the future of the health and wellness space. 

• While the Health + Wellness industry began with a focus on the physical (the human body), today’s innovators are increasingly focused on the mind 
• For those building in the space, it’s all about personalization and data-driven solutions
• Innovators today are moving away from traditional Western medicine as a default solution and looking toward non-medical alternatives  
• Those at the forefront of the space have their sights trained on DNA as the unlock to, well, basically everything from the future of human health to the industry’s next biggest players 
• Insurance (or lack thereof for health and wellness treatments) is a factor currently holding the space back from mass adoption
• We are still exceedingly early and see incredible investment opportunities on the horizon for the next 5-10 years

We want to thank everyone who attended and supported the event. We look forward to continuing to actively monitor the health + wellness space in the year ahead.