Category Archives: Innovation

Aidar Health Scores FDA Clearance for New Breath-Based “Tricorder” Health Monitoring Device



In this episode, we talk with Sathya Elumalai, CEO & Co-founder of Aidar Health, a StartUp Health company since 2016. Sathya and his team in Baltimore have invented something that could change healthcare as we know it. It’s a simple-looking device that you hold in your hand and breathe into for 30 seconds. From that simple act, the device — MouthLab — can pull more than 10 vitals. What’s even more impressive is that they’ve clinically validated the health tests at the highest level. Sathya breaks it all down in our interview and explains his moonshot vision for the future of remote monitoring and chronic disease management.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/contentSign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


GE Healthcare’s Karley Yoder Builds Bridges With AI



Karley Yoder made a name for herself in the digital health world at Doctor on Demand and Apple before launching a career at GE Healthcare, where she now serves as Vice President and General Manager of Artificial Intelligence. Today, she works to find the signal in the noise surrounding AI, helping the company leverage its potential to improve patient outcomes, rather than to apply, as she puts it, “technology for technology’s sake.” Yoder joined the StartUp Health community at a recent Fireside Chat, where she explained how impact-driven AI can help to expand care teams, why effective partnerships are built on practical approaches to problems, and how an ecosystem of “GE-plus-others” can help ensure positive, sustainable change.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/contentSign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


Cloudbreak’s Jamey Edwards Breaks Down the UpHealth Mega Deal and Why SPACs Work



Jamey Edwards, the CEO and Co-founder of Cloudbreak Health, has been in telemedicine for years, but his health moonshot impact is about to get a lot bigger. Thanks to a SPAC (which he breaks down in the podcast), his company has been “rolled up” into a new publicly-traded mega-company called UpHealth, which will bring to bear hundreds of millions of dollars and combine the offerings of multiple digital health entities.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/contentSign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Toby Cosgrove Sees Moonshot Potential in an After-COVID World



While this may be the first global pandemic Toby Cosgrove, MD, has experienced, he’s seen a lot in his nearly 50-year career. The Executive Advisor and former CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic is also a former heart surgeon, a Vietnam War veteran, and now a member of the StartUp Health board of advisors and our Health Moonshot Impact Force. As Dr. Cosgrove sees it, COVID-19 has shifted the national healthcare puzzle to reveal its missing pieces, creating new openings for improvement and innovation. These include new delivery systems for healthcare, greater collaboration, better use of data, and accelerated innovation. In a recent conversation with the StartUp Health community led by Steven Krein and Unity Stoakes, Dr. Cosgrove shared his thoughts on our current moment and what comes next.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/contentSign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


A Moonshot Vision for Healthcare Virtual Reality With Dr. Brennan Spiegel



Dispense with everything you know about virtual reality. So says Dr. Brennan Spiegel at the opening of his new book, VRx: How Virtual Therapeutics will Revolutionize Medicine. Dr. Spiegel, our guest on this episode of StartUp Health TV, directs the Center for Outcomes Research and Education at Cedar Sinai Hospital in L.A. He’s one of the most influential and forward-thinking figures in health innovation today. The conversation went deep into the potential for virtual reality to transform therapeutic care, well beyond what many people see as possible.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/contentSign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


The Surprising Secret to Doctor.com’s Success



Andrei Zimiles and Reed Mollins, founders of Doctor.com, are longtime friends and longtime friends of StartUp Health. The two met as pre-teens at summer camp and led parallel lives before becoming partners and entrepreneurs, dropping out of high school at age 16 and transferring out of and into the very same colleges. And just as their friendship has been something of a journey, so, too, has their professional relationship, from Doctor.com’s origins at rented desks in a dusty Soho co-working space (the two vividly recall a garbage bag duct-taped over a broken window) to its acquisition this past fall by Press Ganey.

Zimiles and Mollins joined StartUp Health back in 2013 and returned to share their hard-won wisdom at a recent Fireside Chat. In a wide-ranging conversation amongst friends, the duo explained how their attitude towards sales and approach to building partnerships took Doctor.com from its humble beginnings to its lucrative exit.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content. Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


Walmart Could Magnify Americans’ Access to Healthcare — With the Help of Key Startups



In the era of social distancing, a doctor’s appointment looks a little different than it did a year ago. But Evan Schnur, Director of Healthcare Information and Strategy at Walmart, says the experience will continue to evolve, even after in-person visits resume. Schnur trained as a pharmacist and currently leads the development of the growing range of healthcare services at Walmart Health, which now include primary care visits, diagnostics, and dentistry. The massive scale of the world’s largest company by revenue offers new avenues for prevention and treatment that could shatter the paradigm for medical care. In a recent StartUp Health Fireside Chat, Schnur explained what that future might look like and why healthcare startups might play a key role.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content. Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


Exit Strategies: M&A Wisdom From Entrepreneur-Investors Samer Hamadeh and James Marciano 



In this episode of StartUp Health NOW, StartUp Health co-founder Unity Stoakes dials up Samer Hamadeh, CEO and founder of Zeel, and James Marciano, founder of Tuck advisors, for a candid discussion on mergers and acquisition. According to both Hamadeh and Marciano – who have spent time on both sides of the M&A table – it’s important for founders to build their startups as though they’re going to sell one day, even if they don’t. That means building the systems for clean accounting and transparent business operations from day one. They also discuss the elusive UFO (unsolicited flying offer) and how to know when an offer is worth pursuing. This straight talk on M&A is hard-earned wisdom that will benefit most people in the startup ecosystem.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content. Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


With Finess, Privy CEO Evi Heilbrunn Is Breaking Down Stigmas in the Women’s Health Aisle



Because she’s tackling a stigmatized area of women’s health, one that’s been swept to the side for a long time, Privy CEO Evi Heilbrunn has had to do her research and educate the market. By doing so, she’s showing retailers like Target – where Finess is now on the shelf – that women’s health products were in need of an upgrade, and that we’re on the cusp of a whole new way of thinking about the whole women’s health aisle.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content. Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.


Vinod Khosla: Investing in the Future of Healthcare & Moonshot Thinking



The global pandemic ushered in a new era of health innovation. StartUp Health founders Steven Krein and Unity Stoakes sat down for an interactive Fireside Chat with Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures to discuss the future of health innovation in a post-pandemic world, why moonshot thinking is more important than ever, and to dig deep into topics like the power of mindset and collaboration.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content. Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.