ionava’s first Health & Wellness Summit at LA Tech Week

On October 15 2025, we opened the doors in Venice for our first ionava Health & Wellness Tech Innovators Summit—our debut at LA Tech Week.

Our first event was oversubscribed, with 550+ RSVPs of founders, investors, and operators who joined us to explore how health has evolved into a lifestyle and how technology is accelerating that shift.

The day

Doors opened at 10 with open co-working, mushroom coffee, and matcha. Then we had an active morning filled with yoga, tai chi, breathwork, and meditation, led by Nina Hayes and Paul Wirth of Mosaic Bodyworks. Lunch from Picnic. Massages through the afternoon. A live DJ, zero-proof cocktails, and founder demos to close it out.

The goal was to make people feel what it's like to use ionava—to get rewarded for all the healthy choices they're already making.

The partners in the room

We had such a great group of wellness and health-focused brands. A BIG thank you to the sponsors and vendors who made the space come alive—Picnic, Cocojune, Wadr Law, Element Apothec, Matcha Moments, hiyo, Aplós, Noon, oku, Laird Superfood, Blume, Doctor U, and Liquid I.V.—and to the founders who exhibited: LUBU Technologies, Lani Ayurvedic, Fovionics, Wuum, SHiFT MasterSessions, thymia, and RESON8.

And a big one to Crystelle Desnoyer of How2Scale, who produced the day alongside us.

The panel

The centerpiece was a conversation about where health and wellness are headed. On stage across the panel and fireside: Peter Ward (Oura—fresh off a $900M raise announced the day before), Zach Poll (VSP Vision), Jeff Chen (Radicle Science), Amy Smith (Indra Intelligence, ex-TOMS and Apple), Allison Ball (Tia), and Siya Bhatt (Cencora).

A few things stuck with us.

Wellness has moved from self-care to lifestyle—something you build into your identity, not something you do once a day.

"When we talk about self-care, we do something and there's an immediate reaction… When you talk about lifestyle, we're talking about aligning your values with the way you behave in the world." — Amy Smith

Data and AI can empower people, but only when they cut the noise instead of adding to it. As Peter put it, sometimes the most useful signal is "maybe today’s a rest day."

What we took from it

The system still isn’t recognizing the work people are already doing to stay well. That gap is exactly why we built ionava—a financial platform designed around health and wellness. Not insurance. Money you control for everyday health, plus reserved cash for the 'Big What-Ifs.'

A room full of founders, funders, and doctors who share that premise? That was the whole point.

What's next

We'll be back for LA Tech Week next year—and we're already dreaming up what comes next.

See what else we're planning on our events page.