Jenny Just

Jenny Just is one of a relatively small group of self-made female billionaires actively deploying personal capital across early-stage healthcare and consumer technology, and her investment posture reflects both her operator background and her stated views on financial literacy and access. As co-founder and managing partner of PEAK6 Investments, the Chicago-based financial services and technology firm she founded in 1997 with USD 1.5 million in seed capital, Just has built a multibillion-dollar operating business spanning options trading, fintech, insurance and consumer brands. Her angel investing extends across healthcare technology, women’s and reproductive health and broader financial inclusion themes, with a clear orientation toward whole-health initiatives and healthcare affordability and access.

The stated investment focus is on healthcare technology and software, women’s and reproductive health and consumer-facing health products, with the throughline of access and affordability that mirrors her operator commitments at PEAK6. Just is not a thesis-driven institutional investor in the traditional venture sense; her angel activity is structured around personal conviction supported by significant capital, with selective board engagement on companies that align with her stated priorities. She has been publicly active around financial literacy through Poker Power, the financial decision-making program she founded to teach women strategic skills through poker, and that orientation toward access and skill-building extends into how she evaluates healthcare investments. Founders should expect her to think about whether the product structurally improves access for underserved populations rather than whether it captures incremental margin from existing affluent users.

The portfolio extends across hundreds of private investments. Disclosed positions include Webull, the online brokerage; Stash, the consumer investing platform; QuantumScape, the solid-state battery company; and Thrasio, the Amazon aggregator. Within healthcare, BBG Ventures, which has approximately USD 130 million in assets under management and was founded in 2014 with Just as a backer, has invested in over 100 companies including healthcare positions such as Maia Oncology, providing one channel through which her healthcare exposure flows. PEAK6’s own portfolio of operating businesses includes Apex Fintech Solutions, Team Focus Insurance Group, We Insure, Evil Geniuses, Zogo and Poker Power, with the insurance and fintech assets serving as adjacent platforms to selected healthcare investments.

On stage and check size, Just operates at seed and Series A with personal checks typically starting at USD 250,000 and scaling based on conviction and syndicate composition. She is not bound by institutional fund pacing, which gives her flexibility on timing, but the practical reality is that her angel activity sits alongside operating commitments at PEAK6 that consume significant attention. Founders should treat her check as a meaningful signal and capital injection but should not expect the operational support that a dedicated venture firm with a portfolio team would provide.

Decision-making sits with Just personally, supported by the broader PEAK6 organization for diligence support on selected investments. The lack of an investment committee means decisions can move quickly when interest is high, but the volume of inbound is substantial and the conversion rate for unsolicited outreach is low. Just has been notably accessible through public speaking, podcast appearances and her engagement with Michigan Ross and other academic institutions, and founders who can credibly engage with her stated views on access and financial literacy tend to convert better.

The most reliable path to engagement is through the PEAK6 ecosystem, through BBG Ventures and through founders she has previously backed. Warm referrals from women operators in fintech and healthcare materially improve the odds, as do introductions through the institutions where she serves on boards or speaks publicly. Cold outreach via the PEAK6 channels is occasionally answered but rarely converts.

What founders should know is that Just is the right angel for healthcare and consumer companies with clear access, affordability or financial empowerment narratives, particularly those serving women and underrepresented populations, and the wrong angel for purely incremental clinical software or capital-intensive therapeutics. Her check brings meaningful capital and a distinctive operator perspective, but it works best as a complement to a strong institutional syndicate rather than as a replacement for one. Founders who frame their company around the access and empowerment themes she has publicly championed tend to derive the most value from the relationship.