CHCF Innovation Fund Grant

CHCF Innovation Fund Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: California Health Care Foundation
Amount: Up to US $400,000
Last Updated: February 17, 2026

Summary

The CHCF Innovation Fund Grant aims to enhance healthcare access and quality for Californians by investing in early- to growth-stage companies. It focuses on technologies developed by diverse founders who understand community challenges, particularly in California's Medicaid ecosystem. The fund seeks partners committed to improving care quality, reducing costs, and ensuring access for low-income populations. This initiative highlights the importance of lived experiences in driving innovative healthcare solutions. For more information, please refer to the FAQs on their website.

Overview

What is the Innovation Fund? The CHCF Innovation Fund aims to improve access and to ensure high-value care for all Californians by partnering with emerging companies to bring the best innovations and technology to providers, health systems, payers, and patients. We invest in early- through growth-stage companies, providing critical investment capital and network-building support to mission-aligned entrepreneurs. Our team brings deep knowledge in policy, delivery system partners, and reimbursement within Medicaid and California, which gives us a unique ability to help our portfolio companies navigate California’s complicated Medicaid ecosystem. What types of companies or organizations does the Innovation Fund invest in? We invest in early- through growth-stage companies, providing both capital and network-building support to entrepreneurs working to grow their reach in California’s Medicaid ecosystem.We believe that technology solutions should be developed by the people in the communities they serve because no one has more insight into the challenges than the people who wrestle with them. Right now, we are actively working to grow our portfolio of companies we support founded by Black and Latinx people, other people of color, and women. These founders are critical partners because they are often able to tap their lived experiences to champion solutions that align with our mission of improving health care delivery to all Californians. We seek companies that have a strong commitment to CHCF’s mission, and whose products or services have the potential to significantly improve quality of care, lower the total cost of care, or improve access to care for Californians with low incomes. In these cases, we help companies understand how to navigate the systems that provide care for people living on low incomes, and can provide feedback, answers, and expertise on broadening the reach of these solutions. Ultimately, for us to invest we need to see both mission alignment and a path to a promising commercial relationship. Please see FAQs for additional guidelines.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Companies must be incorporated in the US, but can be based outside the state. We look for companies that have active clients or strong prospective partners in California, or desire to build these partnerships.

Ineligibility

We do not support life sciences and medical device companies.CHCF generally does not fund:Direct clinical careGeneral operationsPurchases of equipmentCapital or endowment campaignsConstruction, purchase, or renovation of facilitiesAnnual appeals or fundraising eventsBasic biomedical researchInsurance subsidiesRequests that benefit an individualOrganizations outside of the US