Tag Archives: Health Transformers

Raising My First Million: The Health Moonshot Mindsets & Tactics That Helped Perceiv AI Close $1.5M During a Down Market

February 2, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, Insights, Startups, UncategorizedChristian Dansereau, Funding, Health Mindsets, Health Moonshots, Health Transformers, Insights, Logan Plaster, Mindsets, Perceiv AI, WisdomNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:35 — 19.8MB)

Welcome to StartUp Health NOW, the podcast where we celebrate the entrepreneurs and innovators who are transforming health.

It’s no secret that 2022 was a down year for health innovation funding. Earlier this month we published our Year-End Insights Report, which showed a 50% drop-off in digital health funding compared with 2021. Of course, you have to take those numbers in context. For one, 2021 was a crazy, exuberant year for funding, fueled by a COVID-induced rush to virtual healthcare. Second, when you look at health innovation funding over 10 years, we’re still on a dramatic upward growth curve.

That said, 2022 was a scary year for startups that needed to raise funds, so we called up a founder in the StartUp Health portfolio who’d made it happen. Christian Dansereau, PhD, CEO and Co-founder of Perceiv AI, closed his first round, $1.5M, in November 2022, while many other companies were experiencing down rounds, acquisitions, and or even closing their doors.

So, how’d they raise their first million plus in spite of rocky market conditions? What strategies and mindsets did they use that other founders can learn from? In this podcast episode, we get tactical about lead gen, decks, and nailing your first meeting, and also talk about the importance of aligning with partners at a health moonshot level.

Learn more and connect with Health Transformers like Perceiv AI.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Investors: Contact us to learn how to invest in Health Moonshots
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Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.

Looking to break down health barriers? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our Health Equity Moonshot.

AI-Powered Health: Naheed Kurji of Cyclica Takes a Deep Dive into Artificial Intelligence for the Healthcare Industry

October 18, 2022Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAI, artificial intelligence, Cost to Zero, Cure Disease, Cyclica, Health Transformers, Logan Plaster, machine learning, Moonshots, Naheed KurjiNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:28 — 40.6MB)

Our guest this week is Naheed Kurji, the CEO and Co-founder of Cyclica, which joined StartUp Health way back in 2014. He’s going to get us up to speed on the world of AI-powered drug discovery. We’ll learn how artificial intelligence and machine learning are speeding up our ability to identify molecules and find new uses for market-tested drugs. Naheed will give us an inside look at how Cyclica is specifically trying to reshape this market, then he’ll zoom way out. As the chair of the Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Health, Naheed can help us understand where the AI for health industry is going.

Join us at the StartUp Health Festival @ HLTH, Nov 13-16, 2022, in Las Vegas to meet Naheed Kurji in person.

Learn more and connect with the team at Cyclica.

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.

Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.

Looking to break down health barriers? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our Health Equity Moonshot.

Health Innovation Implementation: Dr. Robert Wilson on How Partnering with PreventScripts Enhanced His Medical Practice

September 27, 2022Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAccess to care, Brandi Harless, chronic care, Cost to Zero, CovenantCare, CovenantCare Family Practice, Cure Disease, diabetes, Digital Health, Dr. Natalie Davis, Dr. Robert Wilson, health innovation, Health Moonshots, health transformation, Health Transformers, Logan Plaster, md, Natalie Davis, PreventScripts, Robert Wilson, Type 2 Diabetes, Type II DiabetesNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:39 — 21.2MB)

Typically on this show we talk to the health tech founders – who we call Health Transformers – that are creating the tools and platforms that will modernize our health system. This week we have a different kind of guest who will help round out the picture of how healthcare innovation goes from idea to real-world implementation.

Our guest is Robert Wilson, MD, a family physician who runs CovenantCare Family Practice, a multi-site medical practice in Tennessee. Dr. Wilson popped up on our radar because he was an early partner for PreventScripts, a startup that’s part of the StartUp Health portfolio. PreventScripts, led by Brandi Harless and Natalie Davis, MD, has created a platform that helps family doctors like Dr. Wilson identify patients who would benefit from chronic care management. Think about a patient who is pre-diabetic and all signs point towards a long battle with Type 2 diabetes. While Dr. Wilson might be too overextended to identify and coach this patient before the disease sets in, PreventScripts can identify the risk and put the patient on a clinically-proven program. Patients with chronic diseases, or the risk of disease, get heightened care between visits, and Dr. Wilson gets added reimbursement.

We wanted to talk to Dr. Wilson to understand why he was interested in partnering with a health startup, as this is one of the key hurdles for any health innovator. How do you find the right clinical partner, a place to prove out your brilliant idea in the real world, and then iterate based on user feedback?

In the conversation, we’ll get into the real-world challenges that Dr. Wilson faces, his motivation for evolving his practice, and how PreventScripts has helped him fill gaps in patient care.

Learn more and connect with the team at PreventScripts.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.

Looking to break down health barriers? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our Health Equity Moonshot.

Affectifi’s ThinkHuman Platform Uses Streaming TV to Make Emotional Regulation Easy, Fun, and Accessible

August 30, 2022Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedAffectifi, Health Moonshot, Health Transformers, Ilya Lyashevsky, Logan Plaster, Melissa Cesarano, mental health, Mental Health & Happiness, ThinkHumanNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:47 — 49.2MB)

Emotional regulation. It’s a fancy term for something very simple, and something we often take for granted. Emotional regulation is a person’s ability to effectively manage and respond to an emotional experience. We do this work unconsciously all day long, deciding how to respond when we’re cut off in traffic or when we see something we disagree with on social media.

How we respond to emotional situations can have massive ramifications for our lives, yet we don’t typically spend much time thinking about it or trying to improve.

Our guests this week, Melissa Cesarano and Ilya Lyashevsky, got their PhDs at Columbia University studying the science of this field, called social-emotional learning. Now, they’ve poured their academic work into a startup called Affectifi, which StartUp Health backed last year.

In this conversation, we’ll hear from Mel and Ilya about their unique methodology for teaching emotional regulation to young people. It’s a platform called ThinkHuman and it actually piggy-backs training modules on top of popular content on streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney+.

Listen in to hear how it works.

Learn more and connect with the team at Affectifi.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.

At Trusty.care, Joseph Schneier Is Building a Better Infrastructure for Medicaid and Medicare Benefits

August 23, 2022Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedHealth Transformer, Health Transformers, Joseph Schneier, Logan Plaster, Medicaid, Medicare, StartUp Health, StartUp Health Now, Trusty.careNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:55 — 30.1MB)

This week on StartUp Health NOW we’re talking to Joseph Schneier, the CEO and Co-founder of Trusty.care, a company that joined StartUp Health in 2018. Joseph holds a special place here at StartUp Health because not only is he a four-time serial entrepreneur, but he’s heading up his second StartUp Health-backed company.

Joseph’s latest endeavor, Trusty.care, is a platform that makes sense out of the byzantine world of Medicaid and Medicare benefits. It’s not flashy work – which Joseph is the first to admit – but therein lies the opportunity for impact. The chance to build a better infrastructure for health, the pipes and roads that make health insurance a more palatable, patient-centric experience.

Trusty.care is making waves in the Medicaid/Medicare benefits market, and in this interview we pull back the curtain on that success and get a glimpse of what Joseph is planning next.

Learn more and connect with the team at Trusty-care.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.

Salvo Health: Travelocity and Foursquare Exec Jeff Glueck Has Raised $10.5M to Disrupt the GI Health Market

August 16, 2022Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsFoursquare, Health Moonshots, Health Transformers, Logan Plaster, Nutrition and Fitness, Salvo, Salvo Health, TravelocityNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:22 — 41.7MB)

In health innovation – which is the world we inhabit at StartUp Health – there are certain issues that get the lion’s share of attention. Think wearables for tracking daily activity or new mental health solutions. A lot of attention is going towards interventions for seniors and addressing issues of loneliness and isolation. These are wonderful areas of development. But there are other areas of health that have huge implications across society, yet have a way of flying under the radar. There’s stigma – like our hesitance to talk about mental health struggles – and then there’s society’s reaction to gastrointestinal conditions. GI problems. Irritable bowel syndrome or IBS. Celiac disease. The list goes on. Each year, 62 million Americans are diagnosed with a digestive disorder. Another 30 million go undiagnosed. They’re often too embarrassed to even talk to their primary care provider about it, so they suffer in silence, and it has negative ripple effects across their entire life.

Well, all that seems to be about to change. The virtual healthcare revolution has reached the GI market with the launch of Salvo Health, a company that’s using virtual care to bring the best gut health tools and therapies to millions of people.

Heading up the effort is CEO and Co-founder Jeff Glueck, who is our guest on today’s episode. Jeff is a tech industry veteran, having been Chief Marketing Officer at Travelocity during their meteoric rise, and the CEO of the social app Foursquare. He’s leveraging that experience to disrupt an old school industry and bring relief to millions. The company, which joined StartUp Health last year, has just announced a $10.5M Seed raise to bring Salvo out of stealth mode and start to scale in earnest.

How’s Jeff going to use his experience at Travelocity and Foursquare to disrupt the GI health market? We’ll let him explain in the interview.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.

Dr. Toyin Ajayi, Cityblock Health: Building and Scaling a Company With an Impactful Mission

August 2, 2022Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAccess to care, Cityblock, Cityblock Health, Community Health, Dr. Toyin Ajayi, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Logan Plaster, Moonshots, Toyin Ajayi, UnderservedNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:27 — 63.5MB)

Toyin Ajayi, MD, co-founded Cityblock Health in 2017 with the goal of meeting patients where they are. Cityblock Health, which joined StartUp Health in 2019, provides patients with 24/7 support and care that is affordable and fits complex needs. Their mission is not just to improve quality of care, but to improve the health of whole communities.

In this conversation, Dr. Ajayi, who stepped into the role of CEO this year, shares how their high-touch care concept adapted to COVID. She also explains how their unique model has specialists collaborating on patient care plans and gives some hard-earned leadership advice to founders.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.

BUA FIT Hits One Million Engagements in Support of Outdoor Fitness

June 28, 2022Business, Fitness, Health, Innovation, StartupsBUA FIT, Dave Stapleton, David Stapleton, Fitness, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Logan Plaster, Moonshots, Nutrition and Fitness, StartUp HealthNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:48 — 29.5MB)

One in four adults is physically inactive according to a global health study published in the Lancet a few years ago. That’s an enormous number. It doesn’t take much research or imagination to figure out that this leads directly to poorer health outcomes – and just a lower quality of life in general. Our bodies need to move for our physical and mental wellbeing.

Dave Stapleton, our guest today, is working to solve this problem. Dave played semi-pro rugby in Ireland and then moved to London to work in finance. Because of his years on the field, he prefers outdoor fitness classes. He was taking part in these various bootcamps and high intensity training sessions around London when he realized two things.

The first was that outdoor training was more accessible to the people who needed it most. People who feared the judgment or complexity of a gym seemed to see outdoor classes as an entry point to fitness. The second was that the outdoor fitness market was incredibly fractured and disorganized.

So Dave did what great entrepreneurs do. He dove deep into market research, found like-minded collaborators, and began to build. The platform he created, BUA FIT, just celebrated facilitating its one millionth engagement, so we wanted to get Dave on the phone from London and hear more about how their journey has played out since StartUp Health invested in the company last year.

Learn more and connect with the team at BUA FIT.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Lactation Lab Gets FDA Breakthrough Device Designation to Help Babies Get the Nutrition They Need

June 21, 2022Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsChildrens Health, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Lactation Lab, Logan Plaster, Moonshots, Stephanie Canale, womens healthNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:34 — 31.6MB)

Our guest this week is Stephanie Canale, MD, the CEO & Founder of Lactation Lab, which StartUp Health backed in 2019.

As a family doctor and as a mother, Dr. Canale saw firsthand the challenges faced by new moms when it comes to feeding their babies. What she saw again and again was that mothers simply didn’t have information about their own breastmilk. Was it low in certain nutrients? Would the child benefit from a supplement? Why, she wondered, was there so much guesswork about something so essential to infant thriving? So, she came up with a testing kit that analyzes breast milk to show exactly what nutrition their infant is getting, allowing mothers to replenish anything that is deficient.

We dialed up Dr. Canale this week for two reasons. One was to get her take on the current infant formula shortage, since she works so closely with new parents. But also, in exciting news, Lactation Lab has just received FDA Breakthrough designation for a device they’ve built that’s being used in hospitals to make sure that the most at-risk babies get the nutrients they need to grow and thrive. Dr. Canale explains all about it in our interview and how this FDA Breakthrough Device designation has changed her company’s trajectory in interesting ways.

Learn more and connect with the team at Lactation Lab.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

With Particle Health’s API, Troy Bannister Is Making Health Data Interoperability a Reality

May 31, 2022Business, Health, Innovation, Insights, Startups2022 StartUp Health Festival, Cost to Zero, Health Moonshot, Health Moonshots, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Katya Hancock, particle health, StartUp Health @ ViVE, StartUp Health Festival, troy bannister, ViVE 2022Nicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:01 — 26.1MB)

A 2021 report in Bloomberg Law stated that though “Health IT pros and federal regulators dream of a healthcare system in which the flow of information happens seamlessly through a simple mouse-click, at least 70% of healthcare providers still exchange medical information by fax.”

In the world of health innovation, we know what can be unlocked when patient data can move safely and quickly from point A to point B. We know it because we saw it in the world of personal finance. Interoperable financial data empowered normal people to take charge of their finances, sending and receiving money, investing with a click of a button. It also empowered a new generation of apps like Venmo and Robin Hood.

This week we bring you a conversation with Troy Bannister, CEO and Co-founder of Particle Health, a StartUp Health portfolio company that is working to bring to healthcare the same level of data interoperability that we’ve experienced in personal finance. Their API framework is a foundation for healthcare innovators to build upon, so really we’re just at the very beginning of seeing what’s possible.

Troy explains what they’ve built, and what’s coming next in health data interoperability in this conversation with Katya Hancock, partner at StartUp Health. The chat was held in front of a live audience at the StartUp Health Festival @ ViVE in Miami Beach in March.

Learn more and connect with the team at Particle Health.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com