StartUp Health has chosen 14 new digital health companies for its three-year long mentorship program, which aims to turn startups into sustainable businesses.
The company made the announcement today at the Cleveland Clinic’s Innovation Summit. Over 1,200 companies applied for the program, which lasts three years and includes virtual workshops, classes, regular summits, and access to a variety of online resources.
Health accelerator programs like RockHealth and HealthBox offer startup funding and mentorship for a period of three to six months. StartUp Health works a little differently — many of the startups in the new program are later stage and have already raised funding in the form of angel investment, venture capital, and grants.
The startups won’t have to move to a specific location — the companies can live anywhere, and virtually take StartUp Health core curriculum, which consists of 13 modules on customer development, team dynamics, and product design.
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StartUp Health’s academy program is highly structured and designed to help startups become sustainable businesses. One of the goals for the first year, for instance, is to connect the founders with potential pilot partners, like a chief information officer of a large hospital network. These partners will often turn into paying customers by the end of the program.
Earlier this year, StartUp Health partnered with GE as part of its $6 billion Healthymagination initiative. The startups enrolled in the program can take advantage of many of GE’s software and infrastructure for free.
Similarly to an incubator or accelerator program, StartUp Health takes equity — typically, it’s between 2 to 10 percent stock, which is determined on an individual basis.
The startups chosen for the program are:
@Point of Care360
[Subsector focus: Patient Engagement; Physician Engagement; Point of Care Reference]
Point of Care360 is on a mission to provide true clinician and patient collaboration for positive patient outcomes. Robert Stern is the founder and CEO of @Point of Care360, a continually updated point of care reference tool and platform for the clinician, which interfaces with customized realtime patient care journals. Robert is also a former president and chief executive of MedPage Today, which was acquired by Everyday Health in December 2010.
1eq
[Subsector focus: Genomics; Wellness; Behavior Change]
1eq (@1eqhealth) leverages both genetics and lifestyle information, provided through wireless devices and mobile apps, to produce a more comprehensive health picture and actionable steps for its users to live a healthier life. The founders are Anish Sebastian and Juan Pablo Segura.
AdhereTech
[Subsector focus: Medicine Adherence]
Cofounders Michael Morena, John Langhauser, and Josh Stein are developing the future of prescription drug packaging. AdhereTech (@adheretech) has built a patented smart pill bottle to improve medication adherence. The bottle automatically determines the amount of medication in realtime, and wirelessly transmits this HIPAAcompliant data to the cloud via a Verizon network. If a patient hasn’t taken his or her medication, AdhereTech reminds the patient via phone call or text message, as well as via onbottle lights and chimes. The company has secured trials with a number of research institutions and pharma companies.
CoheroHealth
[Subsector focus: Home Health; Mobile Health; Medicine Adherence]
CoheroHealth (@coherohealth) has created AsthmaHero, a mobile solution for kids with chronic asthma, incorporating an inhaler sensor and mobile application to track realtime adherence and mobile spirometry through an engaging, gamified patient interface. The founder is Melissa Manice, Ph.D., MPH.
DataGenno
[Subsector focus: Genomics; Big Data]
The founders of DataGenno aim to facilitate information exchange about genetic and rare diseases to translate the latest advances into effective clinical interventions. DataGenno (@datagenno) is an online medical information company created to be the onestop source of information on genetic diseases and syndromes, connecting both clinical and molecular aspects of genetic diseases in a fully interactive environment. The cofounders are Fabricio F. Costa, Ph.D., and Marcelo P. Coutinho, MD, MsC.
Edamam
[Subsector focus: Wellness; Nutritional Analysis]
Edamam was founded by serial entrepreneur Victor Penev, and is organizing the world’s food knowledge. The company provides cost-effective nutritional analysis and diet labeling to businesses and consumers through its semantic food and nutrition knowledge database and natural language processing algorithms. Edamam aims to become the default digital nutrition engine of the web.
Gene By Gene
[Subsector focus: Analytics; Big Data; Genomics]
Gene By Gene, Ltd. (@gxgene) is a genetic DNA testing company with ancestry and medical solutions. Founded in 2000 as the world’s first company to develop consumer DNA testing for ancestry and genealogy applications, Gene by Gene provides a comprehensive approach to diagnostics tests, including AABB certified relations tests, genome sequencing, data management and computational analysis. Gene by Gene is headquartered in Houston, TX, which is also home to its stateoftheart CLIA registered Genomics Research Center and Lab. Gene by Gene recently acquired StartUp Health company Arpeggi.
Medicast
[Subsector focus: Concierge Medicine; Home Health]
Sam Zebarjadi, Sahba Ferdowsi, MD, and Nafis Zebarjadi are working to make it easy for anyone to receive access to a doctor with the click of a button. The Medicast (@medicast) web and mobile platform provides consumers with 24hour on-demand medical services, including delivering high quality, compassionate doctors directly to a patient’s home, office, or hotel.
Ondello
[Subsector focus: Home Health; Patient Relationship Management, Concierge Medicine, Telehealth]
Mark Hadfield, a serial entrepreneur, is on a mission to revolutionize the home care market and simplify how doctors and patients connect online. Ondello (@ondellortc) delivers WebRTC-based software services that enable healthcare providers to seamlessly communicate in real-time with patients through chat, video and voice.
Respondesign
[Subsector focus: Patient Relationship Management; Home Health; Wellness]
Cofounders John Grispon, Ted Spooner, and Jason Leighton aim to increase patient engagement in physical therapy for more effective treatment and reduced readmissions. Respondesign’s flagship product, FitWorld (@fitworldapp), is a Kinectbased rehabilitation therapy platform that targets all segments of rehab from falls prevention and disease management to orthopedic and pulmonary rehab. The platform also enables therapists to deliver an engaging, personalized program that includes patient monitoring and clinician reporting for inclinic and at home usage.
RxApps
[Subsector focus: Mobile Health; Patient Engagement; Wellness]
John Moore is on a mission to ensure that patients’ emotional wellbeing is seen as equally relevant to their clinical health as any biometric measure. RxApps (@rxapps) supplements standard management of chronic illness using customizable text message prompts to track patient health, experience, and behavior metrics that influence outcomes.
Sense Health
[Subsector focus: Mobile Health; Patient Engagement; Patient Relationship Management; Home Health]
Stan Berkow, Brad Hammonds and Paul Biancaniello are on a mission to engage people with their health and improve patient support. Sense Health (@sensehealth) unlocks the potential of mobile health support for patients by giving healthcare professionals a mobile platform to easily create, deliver, and monitor interactive support plans for their patients in between appointments.
TedCas
[Subsector focus: Handsfree Medical Care; Sensors and Tracking]
Jesús PérezLlano (@jesusperezllano), Enrique Muñoz, Daniel Calvo, Gerardo Caballero and the rest of the TedCas team are on a mission to unleash the potential of touchless devices such as Kinect or LEAP inside the health sector. TedCas (@tedcas), powered by Wayra and Sodena, allows doctors to control and manipulate software through gestures and voice commands, without touching, saving time and reducing potential infections.
Yingo Yango
[Subsector focus: Wellness; Mobile Health; Employer Health; Patient Relationship Management]
Marty Jaramillo (@martyjaramillo) and his team are on a mission to unite the highly fragmented health/wellness industry. Yingo Yango (@yingoyango) is a white label, stand alone, mobile patient engagement platform that integrates ecosystems of care. The platform is designed to maximize long-term employee/patient engagement, reduce readmissions, as well as brand clients as health minded, patient centric, and caring organizations. The low cost “connecting the dots” solution is designed for corporations, carriers, and providers.
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