Sophia Bush's Union Heritage Takes Aim At The Overlooked 51% Via Chiyo

Forbes

23-03-2025

In an era where investors claim to champion diversity but rarely put capital behind their words, Sophia Bush and Nia Batts' Union Heritage Capital is putting its money where its mouth is in the women's health space. Their firm is investing in companies like Chiyo, Irene Liu's women's health nutrition platform, to help close a longstanding gap in care and funding. This disparity sees women, who make up 51% of the population, receiving less than 3% of medical research dollars focused on pregnancy, childbirth, and female reproductive health. Union Heritage views this gap not just as an ethical concern, but as a significant missed opportunity for market returns.
I sat down with these three women to explore how they're transforming the landscape of maternal healthcare, leveraging a powerful convergence of activism, financial acumen, and scientific innovation – all directed at solving a crisis hiding in plain sight.
"We've been investing alongside each other for almost 15 years," Bush explains. 'In the same way that so few people back groups of women like those of us right here, we also find that there are so few groups of women that look like us who are allocators.' For Bush and Batts, the mission is deeply personal. Over years of investing, they noticed a consistent blind spot: women's health was underfunded, misunderstood, and largely ignored by mainstream venture capital. That gap, and the lived experiences behind it, reshaped how they thought about where capital should go.
When Batts was trying to conceive, she experienced firsthand the gaps in women's healthcare. "It took me nine months to get to the point where I was able to carry a pregnancy," she shares. "I had to start stripping away all the things that weren't working." Her journey led to discoveries about her body's response to nutrition and holistic approaches that weren't part of mainstream medical advice. "I was changing what I was eating, starting acupuncture... really starting to see the truth in the theory that food is medicine and that nature actually knows the way."
They started seeing a pattern: intelligent, resourceful women facing systemic gaps and solving for them on their own. That realization became a through line in their investment approach. A key factor that drew them to Chiyo.
While their investment in Chiyo aligns with their personal experiences, Bush and Batts emphasize they're not an impact fund. They are a traditional venture capital firm focused on non-concessionary returns. "What gets measured gets done. What gets invested in gets innovated," Batts explains. Their thesis is straightforward: underrepresented founders are best positioned to solve problems for underrepresented communities.
Irene Liu recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30, exemplifies this principle. With degrees from UC Berkeley, Harvard, and Wharton, she brings a rare blend of academic rigor, scientific depth, and strategic vision. But her path to founding Chiyo wasn't a typical Silicon Valley lightbulb moment in a dorm. It was rooted in lived experience, watching her mother prepare and deliver healing meals to postpartum relatives. That quiet, consistent act reinforced a now widely accepted belief: food is medicine. Combined with her Taiwanese heritage, those early lessons shaped the foundation for Chiyo, a subscription service that blends modern nutritional science with traditional Eastern food therapy.
Liu and co-founder Jennifer Jolorte Doro piloted a five-week postpartum meal delivery service in New York City. Demand quickly outpaced expectations, with thousands of pre-orders driven entirely by word of mouth.
Irene Liu CEO and Founder - Chiyo
Irene Liu
Today, Chiyo serves fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum nutritional needs nationwide. "We've served over 80,000 meals, achieved 150% revenue growth in the past year, and built partnerships with more than 250 women's health practitioners," Liu says. 'The demand has always been there. The challenge has been getting investors to see the value in supporting women's health solutions at scale.' Liu recently secured $3.4 million in funding to expand operations, including opening a second kitchen in California this April.
Liu believes the lack of investment in women's health isn't due to flawed business models, but to systemic barriers. While researching her concept, she saw this firsthand, and also recognized the value of something often overlooked: the role of cultural food traditions in postpartum care. Across many communities, these meals are designed to heal, nourish, and comfort new mothers. In the U.S., where formal postpartum support is limited, these rituals can offer crucial physical and emotional care.
"I called up at least five women who had tried this before," Liu says. "It was never a problem of demand. It was always a problem of getting the resources to scale up. No investors would invest in them." Bush points out the mathematical absurdity: 'We know we're 51% of the population, but only 3% of medical research dollars go to women and almost none of those dollars go to pregnant women. If 51% of the population is being so underserved, the ratio to opportunity is insane. You're leaving 48% out of the economy.'
But Bush shares that beyond capital, another equally significant barrier looms: credibility. "What bothers me about certain movements is that they are rooted in disinformation," Bush explains. 'They falsely correlate things that have nothing to do with each other in terms of scientific proof. Chiyo represents the antidote. Irene is sitting here saying, 'I made a product based on nutritional science to support women,' and that's the difference.'
For investors interested in women's health, Batts offers clear advice: start early. "We need more investors in women's health at the earliest stages because that's when decisions get made about commercialization activities," she explains. 'Investors have a significant impact on the direction of focus.' "Their fund invests from pre-seed to Series A, capturing opportunities before they become mainstream trends. If you wait until the later stages, you're doing what's trendy, not always what's needed," Bush adds.
While Bush and Batts frame their mission in moral terms, they're equally focused on what makes mathematical sense. 'We enjoy asking investors, 'are you comfortable leaving 48% of potential returns on the table?'' Bush says with a smile. Their approach is rooted in the belief that closing gaps in women's health isn't just ethical. It's a smart investment strategy with overlooked upside.
For Union Heritage, this isn't just about diversifying portfolios- it's about reshaping the landscape of healthcare innovation. Bush is clear that the focus is on returns and results, not rhetoric. 'I don't care how we get them. I care that we get them,' she says, cutting through the performative posturing that often surrounds conversations about diversity in finance.
In an industry where platitudes about inclusion frequently substitute for meaningful action, Union Heritage Capital and Chiyo are showing what's possible when women fund women. The returns ripple beyond balance sheets, creating opportunity for a new investment paradigm - an upward cycle where investment drives innovation, innovation improves outcomes, and improved outcomes generate sustainable returns. If this model continues to scale, it raises a compelling question: could what has long been the most overlooked market in healthcare become one of its most lucrative frontiers?