Bio
Rob Frankfurt founded Living Fund to invest in early stage lifestyle health/wellness businesses that fight chronic illness and reduce pills/procedures. He has been a leading advocate of healthy lifestyles and has been investing in the space since 2016.
Prior to launching Living Fund, Mr. Frankfurt previously founded Myca Partners to focus on small cap public company investments. It was while investing in the parent company of Lane Bryant, Mr. Frankfurt learned of the obesity and chronic illness epidemic. Not satisfied with public company solutions focused on maintaining status quo (pills and procedures), Mr. Frankfurt shifted his focus to early stage lifestyle health/wellness businesses that were effectively fighting chronic illness.
Mr. Frankfurt believes that there are tremendous opportunities to reverse/prevent chronic illness which, in its various forms, is the cause of 87% of deaths in America. Chronic illness costs $3.5 Trillion per year in health costs and lost employee productivity.
The Covid pandemic has hit those with chronic illness, obesity, and economic disadvantages the hardest and only strengthens our resolve to work towards effective solutions. Maintaining the status quo is not a viable solution nor can we out insure/out run poor lifestyle choices.
From 2016-2022, Mr. Frankfurt made 20 investments in this sector:
- Upward Farms - Local organic produce and seafood grown in aquaponic ecosystems
- Parsley Health - Changing primary and chronic illness care via functional root cause telemedicine
- Seal the Seasons - Local farmer's market in your freezer
- Gooroo - Tutor platform tailored to the way a student learns, Board of Advisors
- Freeli Foods - Fighting childhood obesity with healthy and convenient meals
- Fora Foods - Premium plant-based butter that cooks/tastes like butter
- Lavva - Deliciously simple plant-based dairy with pre/probiotics
- Abbot's Butcher - Premium plant-based meats crafted from whole food ingredients
- 305 Fitness - Next gen community-based fitness dance going nationwide
- The Chaat Company - Healthy snacks from the streets of India
- Oura - The science of sleep and life enhancement
- Steady - Reinventing diabetes care via tech enabled virtual care (acquired by Carbon Health in '21)
- Betterfly - Social impact wellness/Insurtech bringing nutrition to those in need while rewarding healthy habits
- Biosense - Patented breath ketone meter to fight chronic illness
- Rhythmic Health - Next gen smart health device
- Vessel - In-house wellness tracker that instantly and accurately uncovers what your body needs
- Oova - first fertility tracker to accurately decode hormones & personalize steps towards pregnancy
- Rezilient Health - healthcare made more available/affordable by enabling the best of telehealth & physical care
- Radicle Science - reimagine pharma/academic research model to deliver health outcome data at fraction of time/cost
- Alva Health - helps older people at high risk of stroke to prevent disability and live independently
Mr. Frankfurt is a Director of PFS Web (NASDAQ: PFSW), a leading global provider of eCommerce solutions for business to business and direct to consumer order fulfillment and customer service applications. Prior, he was a Strategic Consultant to the Senior Executive team of PFS Web between April 2018 and December 2018.
Mr. Frankfurt is a member of the Business Leaders Forum Steering Committee for the American Nutrition Association. The ANA's mission is to power people to health with personalized nutrition while reaching 10,000 nutrition professionals and influencers.
Rob Frankfurt is an Endeavor mentor to support high impact entrepreneurship globally.
Mr. Frankfurt is a Member of GlassWall Syndicate, a group of venture capitalists, foundations, trusts, non-profits, and individual investors who share a similar investment thesis and want to accelerate mainstream adoption of products and services that will make a difference in the lives of animals, people and that are better for the planet.
He is also a Volunteer advisor to Steel Partners Holdings Wellness Council working to improve the health and wellness of their self insured employees and families around the globe.
He is a former Director of JetPay Corporation (NASDAQ: JTPY), a leading provider of vertically integrated solutions for businesses including merchant processing, payroll, and human capital management services. Mr. Frankfurt served as the Chairman of the Audit Committee and as a member of the Nominating Committee and Special Committee. JetPay Corp was sold to NCR Corp (NYSE: NCR) in 2018 in a $184 million transaction.
Mr. Frankfurt is a former Director of Handy & Harman Ltd. (NASDAQ: HNH), a global diversified industrial products technology company that develops, manufactures and sells $955 million of engineered materials, specialty tubing, electronic materials, coated materials, and precious metals products globally serving the construction, electronics, telecommunications, home appliance OEM, transportation, utility, medical, and aerospace/defense industries. Mr. Frankfurt served on the Nominating and Compensation committees and was Chairman of the Audit and Special committees. Handy & Harman was sold to Steel Partners Holdings L.P. (NYSE: SPLP) in 2017 in a transaction valued at $895 million.
Mr. Frankfurt is a former Director of Jive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: JIVE), a global provider of communication and collaboration solutions to businesses, government agencies, and other enterprises. Jive Platform allows companies to connect, communicate, and collaborate with employees, customers, and partners. Product offerings are delivered in two configurations, including Jive Internal for employee networks; and Jive External for customers and partner communities. Jive Software was sold to ESW Capital, LLC (owners of Aurea) in 2017 in a transaction valued at $462 million.
He is a former Director of Mercury Payment Systems, Inc. (majority owned by Silver Lake), a fast growing integrated transaction processing technology company which enhances point-of-sale systems by offering fully integrated credit, debit, check, gift card and loyalty processing. Mercury Payment Systems was sold by Silver Lake to Vantiv, Inc. (NYSE: VNTV) in 2014 in a $1.65 billion transaction.
Mr. Frankfurt is also a former Director of Peerless Systems Corp (NASDAQ: PRLS), a licensor of imaging and networking technologies to manufacturers of printers, copiers and multi-function devices which was later sold to Mobius Acquisition, LLC and Puroflow, Inc. (NASDAQ: PURO), a designer and manufacturer of industrial aerospace and automotive filtration products which was later sold to Western Filter.
Prior to forming Myca Partners, Mr. Frankfurt spent more than a decade as a Partner and senior portfolio manager at various investment partnerships including Steel Partners and Sandell Asset Management. His responsibilities included investment research and selection, risk management, fund raising, deal structuring and negotiation, and working with senior managers of portfolio companies to further their strategic goals.
Mr. Frankfurt possesses broad experience in turnaround management and balance sheet restructuring both as a hands-on operator of a database and marketing technology company and investor/board member in a variety of industries.
He began his career as a financial analyst in the mergers and acquisitions department of Bear, Stearns & Co. and later joined Hambro Bank America as an associate focused on small-cap merger and acquisition and venture capital transactions.
Mr. Frankfurt graduated from the Wharton School of Business in 1987 with a B.S. in Economics and was a member of the Varsity Wrestling and Varsity Sprint Football teams. He received his MBA at the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA in 1995 where he was a Venture Capital Fellow and served as Alumni Class President.
Mr. Frankfurt has been a Speaker at Investment Events and Wellness and Leadership Forums as well as a frequent guest on podcasts.
Mr. Frankfurt lives in New York City where he actively raises his two sons. Hobbies they share together include: cooking/eating meals together, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and playing 3 on 3 basketball on the courts of NYC.
Zach Blue (Intern) is a lifelong precision health enthusiast. He took a professional interest in the field after placing as a national finalist in a business planning competition for a concept application he designed to use a phone camera and artificial intelligence for at-home skin cancer screenings.
Later, after having a nutrigenomics consultation with the founder of The DNA Company, Zach expanded his personal and professional interests to include personalized nutrition and the use of app-based and wearable technologies to modify and optimize health behaviors.
Zach is a sophomore at the University of Virginia pursuing a degree in commerce. He is an avid rock climber and intramural athlete.
Later, after having a nutrigenomics consultation with the founder of The DNA Company, Zach expanded his personal and professional interests to include personalized nutrition and the use of app-based and wearable technologies to modify and optimize health behaviors.
Zach is a sophomore at the University of Virginia pursuing a degree in commerce. He is an avid rock climber and intramural athlete.