Category Archives: Insights

How Lazurite Scored Rapid FDA Approval for Their Wireless Surgical Camera



In health innovation, sometimes the eureka moment that sparks a business is subtle. Maybe you’re a physician clicking away on an electronic health record and it dawns on you that you could do the same thing with fewer clicks. An idea is born.

At other times, inspiration smacks you in the face. Or, as in the case of Eugene Malinskiy, the CEO & Co-founder of Lazurite (a StartUp Health company since 2017), smacks someone else. In this podcast, we’ll hear how a fateful day in the operating room set Malinskiy on a multi-year journey of creating the world’s first wireless minimally invasive camera system for use in the OR. The big challenge, as he’ll explain, was getting a powerful enough light system into the unit. This month, Malinskiy and his team celebrated the milestone of receiving FDA clearance for their ArthroFree camera, so we caught up with them to hear the latest.

We also hit Malinskiy up for some practical advice on navigating the FDA process. One tip? Find and invest in an experienced regulatory partner early in the process.

Learn more and connect with the team at Lazurite.

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.


Health Transformers Live: Gray Oncology Solutions, Gennev, AvoMD, Valera Health



This week we wanted to break from our typical format and introduce you to four inspiring founders from the StartUp Health portfolio.

This episode is excerpted from an on-stage Health Transformer discussion that was held at the StartUp Health Festival @ ViVE in Miami Beach in March. You’ll hear from André Diamant, PhD, CEO & Founder of Gray Oncology Solutions, about how they’re improving efficiency in cancer care. Jill Angelo, CEO & Founder of Gennev, talks about how they’re improving women’s health in their post-reproductive years. Yair Saperstein, MD, CEO & Co-founder of AvoMD, explains how they’re crowdsourcing knowledge in order to put the best decision support tools in the palm of the physician’s hand. And finally, Tom Tsang, MD, CEO & Co-founder of Valera Health, explains how his company is bringing comprehensive mental health services to the virtual healthcare ecosystem.

The session was hosted by Lauren Schafer from StartUp Health. In addition to sharing the moonshot missions of each of their companies, they talk about changes seen in health innovation due to COVID’s impact, their biggest messages for partners and investors, and more.


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.


Why Jonathan Bush Calls His New Startup Zus “The Waterboy for Health Innovation”



Our guest on this episode of StartUp Health NOW, Jonathan Bush, has been pushing and prodding and challenging the status quo since the dawn of the digital health revolution.

He did it first as the CEO & Co-founder of athenahealth back in the late 90s, where he collaborated with Todd and Ed Park to build one of the industry’s first internet-based healthcare companies. For that work, Fortune included Jonathan Bush in its list of “34 Leaders Who Are Changing Healthcare.”

Now, Bush is back with an ambitious new startup called Zus Health, which uses a library of software tools to enable digital health companies to build their own unique experiences.

StartUp Health President & Co-founder Unity Stoakes sat down with him on stage at the StartUp Health Festival @ ViVE earlier in March to hear about what he’s building and where he sees health innovation growing next. And, why he likens Zus to being “the waterboy for health innovation.”



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.


Transcarent’s Glen Tullman on Building the Next Healthcare Ecosystem



This week is another StartUp Health Festival @ ViVE special, as we bring you a main stage conversation between Glen Tullman, CEO of Transcarent, and Unity Stoakes, the President and Co-founder of StartUp Health.

In the conversation, held in front of a live audience, Tullman pulls back the curtain on what he’s building at Transcarent, and how it builds on the success he saw at Livongo. Tullman explains why healthcare is entering the era of “Big Customer” not “Big Tech” and why, if we want to make healthcare efficient and affordable, we have to completely rethink the process, not just make the current system work a little more smoothly.

Stick around for the end of the interview, where Tullman gives some practical wisdom to entrepreneurs and innovators who are early in the journey.


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.


Live From the StartUp Health Festival @ ViVE 2022



This week’s podcast is coming to you live from the StartUp Health Festival @ ViVE in Miami Beach where Health Transformers have come together from around the world. StartUp Health’s Media Director, Logan Plaster, interviewed 26 Health Transformers on the first full day of the Festival, learning more about the news our portfolio companies are ready to announce to the StartUp Health community. In this conversation, Logan chats with our Social Media Coordinator, Rachel Freeman, about key takeaways from his interviews: including covering the basics in healthcare, developing surgeries that will solve a multitude of health problems, an exciting announcement from Welwaze, and so much more.


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.


At Particle Health, Troy Bannister Is Bringing the Best of FinTech to Healthcare



Meet Troy Bannister and the Particle Health team when you join us in Miami Beach in March for StartUp Health @ ViVE 2022: startuphealth.com/vive

It’s no secret that healthcare as an industry has lagged behind most industries when it comes to tech adoption. We can search and buy plane tickets on our phones, get a same-day delivery of toothpaste with a click of a button, but medical records often still need to be faxed in paper form from one hospital to another.

Your response might be that’s OK since healthcare is a lot more complicated, and data security is a bigger deal when it comes to health than it is in travel and retail. However, consider Exhibit B: Digital personal finance. Today, people deposit checks, send money, even invest in the stock market, with a click on their phones, in spite of the very sensitive nature of the data involved.

I say all of this because my guest on the show today, Troy Bannister, is bringing the best of finance tech and bringing it to the healthcare industry. Troy is the CEO and Co-founder of Particle Health, which StartUp Health backed in 2018, and he’s on a mission to kill the fax machine and make the essential exchange of health data as easy as Venmo, Mint, or RobinHood. Particle Health is doing this through a clever API approach that helps developers build new, exciting apps.

Join us in Miami Beach from March 6-9 for StartUp Health @ ViVE 2022 to meet the Particle Health team and dozens of other Health Transformers: startuphealth.com/vive

Learn more and connect with the team at Particle Health.

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.


How Nightingale Is Redefining Preventative Health



Join us in Miami Beach in March for StartUp Health @ ViVE 2022: startuphealth.com/vive

Nightingale Health, a Finnish company that StartUp Health backed in 2016, uses a new kind of blood testing to predict future disease risk so that people can change the course of their health before it’s too late. They’ve designed a way to analyze blood samples that pulls 250 times more data from that sample than a typical test. They use artificial intelligence and machine learning to correlate that data with future disease risk, like diabetes and heart disease. Then they put the result in simple terms so that patients can see trends and take action.

This year, Nightingale took three big strides forward. They went public on the Finnish Nasdaq, which gave them capital to scale globally. They rolled out at-home testing kits so more people can benefit from Nightingale’s disease prediction. And they acquired a genomics company that will allow them to bake genetic information into their app and provide people with even more personalized health assessments.

We sat down with Nightingale CEO and Co-founder Teemu Suna to hear more about their blood testing technology and how it could change preventative health globally by getting patients to see their potential future and then change the course of their health.

Join us in Miami Beach in March at StartUp Health @ ViVE 2022 to meet Health Transformers: startuphealth.com/vive

Learn more and connect with the team at Nightingale.

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.


A Candid Conversation w/ Glen Tullman and Lee Shapiro, Investors in the StartUp Health Moonshots Impact Fund



Join us in Miami Beach in March for StartUp Health @ ViVE 2022: startuphealth.com/vive

This week on the show we’re revisiting a conversation that first aired in 2021. It’s from a fireside chat we had with Lee Shapiro and Glen Tullman, the dynamic duo behind ventures like Allscripts, 7wire Ventures, and Livongo. On the call, the two talk with Steven Krein, StartUp Health CEO & Co-founder, about 25 years of lessons learned in investing and how they built health moonshot companies. We hear how Transcarent was “Hatched” and the success drivers behind Livongo. More importantly, we get a candid view of how two icons of health investors think about work and life.

We also learn a bit about why both Lee Shapiro and Glen Tullman have invested in the StartUp Health Moonshots Impact Fund, which launched last year. This fund makes it easy for investors to back a diverse portfolio of health startups, and you can learn all about it at healthmoonshots.com.

Lee Shapiro and Glen Tullman will be joining StartUp Health and more than 50 of our Health Transformers at ViVE, a premier health innovation event by HLTH and CHIME that’s happening in Miami Beach from March 6-9. StartUp Health @ ViVE will bring together founders, partners, and investors under one collaborative roof, and we’ll be broadcasting stories of health moonshot progress from the StartUp Health TV Studio. We hope you’ll join us in Miami Beach! Learn more and save on your ViVE registration at startuphealth.com/vive.

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.
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Responsum Health’s Latest App Puts Long-COVID Front and Center



Our guest today is Andrew Rosenberg, CEO and Founder of Responsum Health, which StartUp Health backed in 2019. At Responsum, Rosenberg and his team have created disease-specific apps that bring together curated information and news about that disease as well as a professionally-moderated community chat, so patients can connect and learn in a safe environment. Their recent app developed around Long-COVID has exploded with activity, so we sat down with Rosenberg to hear what he’s learning from this community of patients.

Join us in Miami Beach in March at StartUp Health @ ViVE 2022 and meet Andrew Rosenberg and other Health Transformers: startuphealth.com/vive

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.


Reversing Diabetes With Sami Inkinen of Virta Health



Join us in Miami Beach from March 6-9, 2022, for StartUp Health @ ViVE to meet Health Transformers: startuphealth.com/vive

The numbers surrounding Type 2 diabetes are staggering. The WHO puts the number north of 400 million people globally, and it’s just getting worse. Health experts agree that Type 2 diabetes can largely be managed by a combination of nutrition, exercise, and medication. But what if it could be reversed completely? That’s the claim, and the health moonshot, of our guest today, Sami Inkinen, CEO and Founder of Virta, which StartUp Health backed in 2020. Specifically, Inkinen and his team want to reverse Type 2 diabetes in 100 million people by 2025.

Before Virta, Inkinen disrupted the real estate industry by co-founding Trulia, which he sold to Zillow for $2.5B. Now with Virta, he’s raised more than $350M to date, giving him the capital needed to take a great idea and scale it in unprecedented ways.

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.