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FORTUNE.COM // JULY 2019
IT’S A 21ST-CENTURY SOLUTION to health care’s “last mile”
problem: delivering essential medical products via
drone in some of the world’s poorest nations. Rinaudo
told the audience at FortuneÕs recent Brainstorm
Health conference that Rwanda is now delivering
60% of its national blood supply outside the capital
city of Kigali with Zipline drones—and many beneficiaries are new
mothers suffering from hemorrhages. What’s more, Zipline’s technol-
ogy is precise enough to literally drop off medical supplies to individual
mailboxes with no need to land, take off, or traverse precipitous terrain.
Zipline recently raised $190 million at a reported $1.2 billion valuation.
Mei Mei Hu
AGE 36
CEO and cofounder,
United
Neuroscience
This former McKinsey
consultant got a JD
then caught the drug
development bug (her
mother is a renowned
biotech entrepreneur).
But Hu’s outsider sen-
sibilities may prove a
major asset, as her
company, United Neu-
roscience, seeks to
stop Alzheimer’s dis-
ease through preven-
tion rather than post
hoc treatment. Hu’s
radical notion? That
vaccines are just as ef-
fective for chronic dis-
eases as they are for
infectious ones.Tr e v or Mar t in
AGE 30
CEO and cofounder,
Mammoth Biosciences
Mammoth has drawn
investments from
luminaries like Tim
Cook, who are betting
that Martin’s plan to
leverage gene-editing
technology to improve
diagnostics and early
disease detection
could radically impact
health care.Mike
Gorenstein
AGE 33
CEO, Cronos Group
This Canadian can-
nabis company has
returned some 9,800%
under Gorenstein’s
leadership, and a
$1.8 billion investment
from Altria gives it a
foothold in the U.S.Alyson
Friedensohn &
Erica Johnson
AGES 29, 32
Cofounders,
Modern Health
These Y Combinator
alums, with an all-
female executive team,
have found a niche
helping big compa-
nies break the stigma
around mental health
and offer health and
wellness tools. Kleiner
Perkins just led the
firm’s Series A round
to raise $9 million.Keller
Rinaudo
AGE 32
CEO and cofounder,
Zipline
Health
retailtim brown & joey zwillinger
cofounders both age 38
Allbirds founders Brown, a professional soccer
player, and Zwillinger, a clean-tech engineer,
want to change the world’s carbon footprint
one cushiony pair of shoes at a time. The duo
emphasize the sustainability of the product,
ALLBIRDS constructed from natural materials like merinowool and eucalyptus fiber. And they hope the
larger shoe industry, with its polluting and
wasteful manufacturing processes, will follow
suit. Allbirds was profitable in its first year, and
three years later, it has an estimated value of
$1.4 billion. Its most recent $50 million round of
funding paves the way for more retail locations
and a launch in China.