NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GE healthymagination and StartUp Health, a long-term academy and network for digital health entrepreneurs, today announced the first thirteen companies selected to join a three-year Entrepreneurship Program to accelerate growth for consumer health companies.
More than 400 companies from 22 countries applied. The thirteen companies selected represent a broad spectrum of health innovation from the United States, Ireland and Israel focusing on aging, health sensors, patient engagement, mobile health, care coordination, big data, analytics and diagnostics, among other areas of innovation.
Rafael Torres, senior managing director, GE healthymagination fund, said, “GE is looking for ideas and partners that can advance industries and improve lives. We believe these thirteen companies have the potential to make quality healthcare more accessible and affordable, and we are excited to work closely with them over the next three years to help them grow.”
Steven Krein, Co-founder and CEO of StartUp Health, said, “From the beginning of the partnership, GE and StartUp Health have been focused on entrepreneurs who are reimagining consumer health and have the perseverance to make their visions come to life. We’re thrilled to work with these exceptional Healthcare Transformers and begin the exhilarating process of helping them build and scale great companies.”
Unity Stoakes, Co-founder and President of StartUp Health, said, “Our partnership with GE represents a new model for collaboration between entrepreneurs and key leaders within healthcare. The magic occurs when we activate our collective strengths and layer in a comprehensive support platform. It’s this fusion that will help more startups become successful and enable us to transform healthcare together.”
The thirteen companies included in the inaugural consumer health Entrepreneurship Program with GE:
Arpeggi - Nir Leibovich, Jason Wang, David Mittelman, PhD
Austin,
TX
Nir Leibovich and Jason Wang, Co-founders of Arpeggi, are on a mission to make it easy and affordable for anyone to translate genomic data into actionable information. Combining the team’s experience in big data and analytics with the expertise of third Co-founder Dr. David Mittelman, leader of the Genetics and Genomic Medicine Lab at Virginia Tech, Arpeggi offers a cutting-edge and versatile technology for high-speed analysis of next-generation genomic sequencing data. Learn more at arpeggi.com.
Aver Informatics - Kurt Brenkus
Green Bay, WI
Kurt Brenkus, CEO and Founder of Aver Informatics, is working to make healthcare data more accessible so organizations can easily translate their enterprise data into actionable insights that lower healthcare costs and improve care. Aver is a modern, social, big data platform with patent-pending technology that helps health organizations leverage their enterprise data without needing teams of analysts, technologists and data scientists. Aver is based in Learn more at averinformatics.com
Care at Hand – Andrey Ostrovsky, MD and Jeffrey Levy
Boston,
MA
Dr. Andrey Ostrovsky and Jeffrey Levy, Co-founders of Care at Hand, have designed a mobile early warning system for elderly home care that decreases readmissions and empowers home care workers with less formal training to document health observations more easily. Care at Hand’s technology platform transforms those observations into predictive alerts to supervising nurses for early disease detection and improved outcomes. Learn more at careathand.com.
Caremerge – Asif Khan, Michael Davolt and Fahad Aziz
Chicago,
IL
Asif Khan, Michael Davolt and Fahad Aziz, Co-founders of Caremerge, are on a mission to transform healthcare coordination for seniors and their families. Caremerge is a communication, care coordination and transitions platform with an immediate focus on senior healthcare. The Caremerge mobile/web apps allow care providers, families, caregivers and patients to access and exchange key information to facilitate efficiency and timely care decisions. Learn more at caremerge.com.
Cerora - Adam Simon
Philadelphia, PA
Adam Simon, Founder of Cerora, is a scientist and entrepreneur on a mission to deliver actionable diagnostic information regarding brain health and function to patients, physicians and companies. Currently, there is no portable, objective, accurate or affordable diagnostic tool to assess brain function and to assist in patient decision making for neurologic and neuropsychiatric conditions. Cerora is changing this paradigm by offering objective biomarker data to physicians, Certified Athletic Trainers, nurses and emergency medical technicians to aid in the diagnosis and management of concussion and Alzheimer's disease. Learn more at cerora.com.
Doctor.com - Andrei Zimiles
New York, NY
Andrei Zimiles, Co-founder and President of Doctor.com, is on a mission to improve the way doctors and patients connect online. At the core of Doctor.com’s platform is a proprietary database of more than 2.5 million healthcare providers that is updated hundreds of times every day. Driving these updates are the thousands of hospitals and medical practices that actively use the Doctor.com platform to showcase their unique services and connect with new patients. Available via a network of partner websites, or at Doctor.com, patients use the platform to find and compare providers, book appointments, receive treatment-related alerts, and share feedback about their experiences. Learn more at www.doctor.com.
GetHealth - Chris Rooney and Liam Ryan
Dublin, Ireland and
New York, NY
Chris Rooney and Liam Ryan founded GetHealth at the age of 22. Having finished college, they found that many programs for improving your health were boring and difficult. They wanted to find a way to cut through the noise, and make the process of getting healthy simple, fun and engaging. GetHealth is a mobile and online platform which increases employee engagement in workplace wellness programs. Users describe the platform as the "Foursquare for Health," allowing people to check-in to their daily health tasks under the Move, Munch and Mind categories. They can then earn points for achieving personalised health goals, while motivating and competing against friends and colleagues. Learn more at gethealthapp.com.
GoGoHealth – Natasha Alexeeva and Kwaku Ampromfi
Atlanta, GA
Natasha Alexeeva and Kwaku Ampromfi, Co-founders of GoGoHealth, are on a mission to allow patients experiencing illness or discomfort to easily describe their symptoms to their provider and get medical advice, a diagnosis, and prescription, via computer or mobile device. GoGoHealth’s clinical protocols software uses intelligent diagnosis algorithms to gather symptoms and health history data that provides a complete view of a patient’s history. These are presented to patients as simple question and answer choices, which are saved as part of their electronic health records. Using GoGoHealth’s EHR-integrated platform, providers can also choose to create their own easy-to-design clinical algorithms using a wide range of design and algorithm flows. Learn more at gogohealth.com.
IntelligentM – Seth Freedman
Sarasota, FL and New York, NY
Seth Freedman, Co-Founder and CEO of IntelligentM, is on a mission to transform clinical hand hygiene monitoring in healthcare settings, drive down infection rates and improve outcomes for patients and costs for providers. IntelligentM is a revolutionary Hand Hygiene Compliance Improvement Solution for healthcare facilities. Use of the iM System results in decreased Healthcare Acquired Infections (HAI's) and their substantial associated costs. Learn more at intelligentm.com.
itMD – Halland Chen, MD
Miami, FL
Halland Chen, MD, one of the co-founders of itMD, and his partners are on a mission to help patients deal with the difficulties and inefficiencies of accessing their medical imaging records. itMD is a cloud-based medical image sharing company that enables the on-demand exchange of medical imaging information from anywhere to anyone. Users on the itMD Network can easily send, share and access medical imaging information online with just a web-browser or mobile device; thus, no special software is necessary. We are empowering patients to connect with their doctors, and allowing organizations to share data with health care providers/recipients with our collaborative, cloud-based application. We help drive the ability to improve the quality of healthcare and decrease costs. Learn more at www.itMD.net.
Oxitone Medical - Leon Eisen, PhD
Ashkelon, Israel
Dr. Leon Eisen, Founder and CEO of Oxitone Medical, is on a mission to dramatically improve patient safety by enabling early clinical response to acute pulmonary or cardiac dysfunction symptoms through continuous monitoring of pulse oximetry. Oxitone has developed the world’s first wrist pulse oximeter without a fingertip probe, enabling comfortable, remote and continuous monitoring of blood oxygen level, pulse rate, beat-to-beat variation and activity out of the hospital environment anywhere, anytime throughout day and night. Learn more at oxitone.com.
TalkSession – Melissa Thompson
New York, NY
Melissa Thompson, Founder and CEO of TalkSession, is on a mission to help patients talk about their health issues by easily finding and connecting with trusted mental health professionals. TalkSession’s online platform allows patients to find relevant mental health professionals and equips those professionals with tools to enhance the quality of care delivered and improve treatment outcomes. Learn more at talksession.com.
WalkJoy – Blain Tomlinson
Long Beach, CA
Blain Tomlinson, Founder and CEO of WalkJoy, is on a mission to restore balance, gait and reduce falls for people with peripheral neuropathy and the elderly. WalkJoy and Walking Health represent landmark development in restoring of gait and balance for PN patients as well as providing important walking diagnostics in all patients. WalkJoy and Walking Health delivers precise measurement, convenience and ease of use—resulting in a paradigm shift in gate lab analysis and ongoing patient care and monitoring for most of the adult patient population. Learn more at walkjoy.com.
The Entrepreneurship Program, launched today at StartUp Health’s Healthcare Transformer Summit, is part of a partnership between StartUp Health and GE’s healthymagination initiative, a $6 billion global commitment to provide better health for more people by improving the quality, access and affordability of care.
About GE
GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter. The best people and the best technologies taking on the toughest challenges. Finding solutions in energy, health and home, transportation and finance. Building, powering, moving and helping to cure the world. Not just imagining. Doing. GE works. For more information, visit the company's website at www.ge.com.
About GE Ventures
GE Ventures is committed to identifying, scaling and accelerating ideas that will make the world work better. Focused on the areas of software, advanced manufacturing, energy and healthcare, GE Ventures helps entrepreneurs and start-ups succeed by providing access to GE’s technical expertise, capital and opportunities for commercialization through GE’s global network of business, customers and partners. GE Ventures offers an unparalleled level of resources through its Global Research Center, including: 35,000 engineers; 5,000 research scientists; 8,000 software professionals; as well as 40,000 sales, marketing and development resources in over 100 countries. GE healthymagination fund is the healthcare investing arm of GE Ventures. For more information, please visit http://www.ge.com/company/ge-ventures.
About StartUp Health
Startup Health, a long-term academy and network for digital health entrepreneurs, represents a new model for helping innovation succeed in the health sector. StartUp Health is on a mission to help 1,000 Healthcare Transformers build growth businesses over the next decade through StartUp Health Academy, The StartUp Health Network and The StartUp Health Innovation Fund. StartUp Health was founded by health tech entrepreneurs Steven Krein and Unity Stoakes and is chaired by former TimeWarner CEO, Jerry Levin. The organization’s investors include leading health, technology and business minds: Mark Cuban, Esther Dyson, Roger Ehrenberg, Brad Feld, Jason Finger, Richard Forman, Linda Holliday, Howard Krein, MD, PhD, Jon Miller, Jeff Stewart and Artists & Instigators. Learn more and apply at startuphealth.com or follow @startuphealth.