Women get Less Than 2% Of Funding, but This is the HACK! - Dr. Amber Hill

Dr. Amber Michelle Hill spent 14 years inside medical research — as a neuroscientist, in the lab, on the preclinical side, and patient-facing — before she discovered the real reason 90% of clinical trials fail. And it has almost nothing to do with the science.

In this Inspiring Women conversation, host Laurie McGraw sits down with the founder and CEO of Research Grid (R.grid), the London-based, VC-backed company she built to take the administrative burden out of clinical trials, speed them up, and make them more diverse and representative of the people the medicines are meant to serve.

Research Grid didn't start as Research Grid. It grew out of Movement for Hope, a nonprofit Amber founded during her academic years that brought researchers, artists, and patient advocates together to raise awareness for neurological conditions. When COVID shut the events down and investors passed on the idea, she repurposed the technology — and the hard-won community relationships behind it — into two AI products: Inclusive, which automates everything that happens before a trial starts and expands access to underrepresented patients, and Trial Engine, which automates the back office of the trial itself.

Today that network spans 99,000+ communities, 400 million members across 157 countries, and 2,000 health indications — all built by hand, over years, with no bought data, while the company stayed stealth for four years before launching in 2023.

Amber breaks down why a single medicine takes 10 to 14 years to go from bench to bedside, why $400 million per trial is burned on admin alone, and how women were once excluded from drug testing entirely. Then she gets brutally honest about raising money as a woman of color in a world where less than 2% of funding reaches female founders — including the investor-scoring matrix she built to decide who's even worth her time. And through all of it, she stays an artist: every painting in her home, including the giant acrylic pour behind her, is her own.

WHAT WE COVER:

- The art-and-science mind behind the company — and why painting quiets her thinking

- 14 years as an end-to-end researcher, and how Movement for Hope became Research Grid

- Why 90% of clinical trials fail — and why it's an admin problem, not a science one

- The hidden cost of research: $400M per trial and 28,000 hours per person on admin

- Why 84% of trials still don't reach the people who need them in time

- How women were excluded from drug trials, and the fight to diversify research

- Building a 400-million-member network the hard way, with no bought data

- How AI took a six-month site feasibility process down to minutes

- The truth about raising capital when you're "different from the person across the table"

- How she scores and filters investors instead of chasing them

- Repositioning to seed and landing in the top 1% of seed-stage companies globally

- Her golden rule for founders: never assume common sense

GUEST: Dr. Amber Michelle Hill, Founder & CEO, Research Grid (R.grid)

HOST: Laurie McGraw

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