Cleveland Clinic enters into strategic partnership with Khosla Ventures

It's not every day that a titan of healthcare shakes hands with one of Silicon Valley's most audacious venture firms. Yet that's exactly what's happening with Cleveland Clinic and Khosla Ventures. The two powerhouses are joining forces to fuse medical mastery with the daring edge of tech innovation. The goal? To rethink how healthcare is delivered — faster, smarter, and more humane.

"This relationship with Cleveland Clinic — one of the most respected health institutions in the world — gives our companies an advantage to validate and scale their innovations," said Hal Paz, MD, operating partner at Khosla Ventures. His words echo the kind of optimism usually reserved for moonshots — and in many ways, this is one.

How does it work?

At its core, the collaboration builds a bridge between two very different but complementary worlds.

• Startups in Khosla's portfolio will be able to test and refine their tech directly within Cleveland Clinic's real-world clinical settings.
• Cleveland Clinic, in turn, gets early access to cutting-edge innovations in artificial intelligence, digital health, and advanced therapeutics.

That means faster validation cycles, quicker feedback from clinicians, and a smoother path from idea to implementation. From clinical validation to commercial adoption, every stage of the innovation journey will play out in an ecosystem that's equal parts lab, hospital, and venture studio.

And the partnership's already moving. Cleveland Clinic has inked commercial agreements with some Khosla-backed startups and is evaluating others for investment and co-development. The two are even eyeing the incubation of a new company — Khosla leading the tech side, Cleveland Clinic providing the clinical testbed.

Why does it matter?

Because healthcare desperately needs this kind of cross-pollination.

AI, once the stuff of science fiction, is now poised to transform how care is delivered — from diagnosis to prevention. As Paz put it, "AI is the most transformative technology of our lifetime, and its impact on healthcare will be massive."

For Cleveland Clinic, it's a direct line to fresh thinking and frontier tech. For startups, it's a golden ticket to scale their solutions with real doctors and patients. The payoff could be immense: more accurate diagnostics, smarter therapeutics, new models of care delivery, and systems that finally reward outcomes over volume.

Their focus areas paint the picture clearly:

• AI and digital health: Smarter workflows, personalized treatments, and expanded access.
• Next-gen therapeutics: Especially in cardiology, oncology, neurology, and musculoskeletal health.
• Care delivery models: From home-based services to global second opinions.
• Value-based models: Addressing the needs of Medicare and Medicaid populations.

This isn't just about efficiency. It's about reimagining healthcare so it feels less like bureaucracy and more like care.

The context

Cleveland Clinic Innovations (CCI), the Clinic's innovation arm, anchors this partnership with serious credentials. Since 2000, CCI has transformed more than 900 technologies into licensed products and launched over 100 spin-offs. That's not just a track record — it's an innovation engine.

On the other side, Khosla Ventures has spent over two decades betting on the improbable — investing where health and tech collide. Pairing that appetite for risk with Cleveland Clinic's credibility and clinical depth feels, frankly, like a match made in disruption heaven.

As Geoff Vince, PhD, Chief of Cleveland Clinic Innovations, summed it up, "Together we aim to accelerate transformational innovation, foster groundbreaking technologies, and ultimately improve patient outcomes."

And that's the real story here — not just a collaboration, but a declaration that the future of healthcare will be written at the intersection of science, software, and sheer ambition.