Tag Archives: Wisdom

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



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

InvestorsContact us to learn how to invest in Health Moonshots
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.

Facing the Music: Critical Lessons in Healthcare Leadership



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

What can music teach us about the confusing, inspiring, sometimes frustrating world of healthcare?

According to Dr. Stephen Klasko, our guest in this first StartUp Health NOW episode of 2023, the answer is a lot.

Dr. Klasko was the President of Jefferson University and CEO of Jefferson Health during the COVID-19 pandemic. He launched JeffConnect, a pioneering initiative in telemedicine, and grew Jefferson Health from three hospitals to 14.

He’s the author of the new book How the Message in the Music Can Save Healthcare in America, in which he throws back to his roots as a radio DJ in order to help the reader think more creatively about the changes that need to take place in healthcare.

Now, he’s getting involved in the startup scene through his work as an executive in residence at General Catalyst. We wanted to bring Dr. Klasko in for a special session with our Health Transformers because he’s solved healthcare problems at the highest level and understands just how interconnected this ecosystem really is. Bonus: he tells it like it is.

The conversation, which took place in front a live audience of founders from the StartUp Health portfolio, was co-hosted by Elizabeth Dale, who worked closely with Dr. Klasko at Jefferson.


 

Learn more and connect with Health Transformers.

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

InvestorsContact us to learn how to invest in Health Moonshots
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.

Why Any Digital Health Startup Needs an Interoperability Strategy w/ Troy Bannister, Particle Health



Troy Bannister is the CEO & Founder of Particle Health, a StartUp Health portfolio company that is shaping the new standard of healthcare data exchange with a user-friendly API platform. Fresh off their $25M capital raise, Troy shares his views on the future of interoperability and why interoperability needs to be a core pillar in any healthcare startup’s playbook. Healthcare’s future is about data, and in front of a live, interactive audience of Health Transformers, Troy chats with StartUp Health’s Jamey Edwards for a deep dive on how to develop an interoperability strategy and partner with the right company to fulfill your moonshot mission.


Join us at the StartUp Health Festival @ HLTH, Nov 13-16, 2022, in Las Vegas to meet Troy Bannister, Jamey Edwards, and hundreds of other Health Transformers in person: https://www.startuphealth.com/startuphealthfestival


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.

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.

 


How to Partner with Investors to Grow & Scale Your Company w/ Cheryl Cheng, CEO & Founder of Vive Collective



This week we welcome Cheryl Cheng to the interview chair. Cheryl is the CEO & Founder of Vive Collective. Previously Cheryl was a Partner at BlueRun Ventures, one of the top VC firms in Silicon Valley.

At Vive, she’s taking her 15 years of experience growing startups and putting it specifically into building, funding, and scaling digital health companies.

Cheryl is also an advisor to the Stanford Biodesign program and is on the advisory board for Yale Medical School’s Digital Health and Innovation Center.

We wanted to have Cheryl on one of our Fireside Chats to learn about Vive Collective – since it’s a relatively new kid on the block – and hear what kinds of opportunities she’s seeing in the market. We held this conversation in front of a live virtual audience of Health Transformers from the StartUp Health Portfolio, so you’ll get to hear some of their tactical questions mixed in throughout the session.

The goal for these sessions is to have candid conversations with people who can cut through the corporate speak and investment jargon, and Cheryl Cheng understood the assignment. We hope you enjoy.


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.

Why Jon Miller, Former CEO at AOL and IAC, Joined StartUp Health’s Board of Directors



Jon Miller is best known for being a former CEO of AOL, Head of Digital Media at News Corp, and Chief Executive of the media powerhouse IAC.

With all of that experience in media, Miller might seem like an interesting choice for the StartUp Health board of directors, which he joined recently. After all, on the board he joins the likes of Toby Cosgrove, MD, whose pedigree as the former head of the Cleveland Clinic needs little explanation.

Obviously, Miller’s experience in business, finance, and media has been vast, but how does that translate to health moonshots, these audacious goals that guide investments at StartUp Health? To find out, we called him up for a chat. Specifically, we wanted to know what tools of media could be used to speed up health innovation and help startups bring their solutions to market more successfully.

What we learned was that many of the advancements and opportunities Miller has seen in media over the last couple decades – advancements in consumerism and community – are absolutely core to improving health in scalable digital ways.

Listen in to hear Miller explain that vision and why he’s more excited than ever to support a global army of health tech entrepreneurs – this band of like-minded founders we call Health Transformers.


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.

Storytelling: A Key Driver of Value Creation, with Jared Bloom of 4th and King



Health Transformers – what we call the entrepreneurs that we invest in and work with every day at StartUp Health – didn’t get into this business to create pitch decks. They didn’t start their companies in order to have investor meetings. They wanted to solve big problems in health. They wanted to heal people and help them live longer. However, the reality is that to achieve your health moonshot will generally require you to attract the necessary capital and talent – and that, in turn, hinges on your ability to tell your story. Whether it’s through your verbal delivery or your presentation deck, it’s essential that founders are able to frame the challenge effectively, inspire confidence in their team, and drive action.

This is precisely where our guest this week, Jared Bloom, has focused his talents. He’s the co-founder of 4th and King, an agency dedicated solely to helping companies craft, design, and deliver fundraising presentations. They’ve worked with more than 200 companies now, helping them to raise a cumulative $7B in capital.

The conversation you’ll hear is excerpted from a Fireside Chat that was held in front of a live audience of founders from the StartUp Health portfolio. In addition to Bloom’s wisdom on telling your story and nailing your next business presentation, you’ll hear his answers to a range of tactical questions from the Health Transformers in the audience.


 

Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.
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 Health Innovation Startups Can Partner with Anthem



In health innovation, you can have the most amazing idea and a rock-solid business plan, but in order to scale, you might still need to find the right enterprise partner. Topping this list for many entrepreneurs is Anthem, which serves 40 million people and is ranked #57 on the Fortune 500 list. It’s safe to say that if your startup can get distribution through this network, it’s going to put you on a whole new trajectory.

In order to find out how Anthem works with startups, we invited Omid Toloui, Anthem’s Vice President of Innovation, to join us for a chat. Anthem has had a range of programs in recent years aimed at collaborating with nimble, forward-thinking startups, like their Innovation Studio in Atlanta and their Digital Incubator Program. But we wanted Omid to pull back the curtain on exactly how Anthem thinks about innovation, and how startups can partner with them.

This StartUp Health NOW episode was excerpted from a Fireside Chat held in front of a live audience of Health Transformers from the StartUp Health portfolio. Enjoy.


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.


Does Teladoc’s Stock Drop Matter? Jamey Edwards on Achieving Health Moonshots in the Face of Rocky Public Markets



This week’s episode of StartUp Health NOW is a conversation with Jamey Edwards, Chief Operating Officer at StartUp Health. Jamey has been working in the telemedicine space for more than a decade, and his last company, Cloudbreak, went public via SPAC last year. So when we saw the headlines that Teladoc’s stock dropped 40% – alongside other dips in the telemedicine public market – we called him up for a dose of perspective. In this conversation with host Logan Plaster, Edwards breaks down the news from Wall Street and gives startups some health moonshot wisdom. Bottom line: stay focused on the mission because improving global health is a marathon, not a sprint.


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.


Startup Strategies: The Secret to Successful Tech Transfer at a Major University



Our guest is Lukasz Kowalik, senior licensing and business development officer at Weill Cornell. Lukasz has a degree in chemistry, a PhD in neuroscience, and a postdoc in chemical biology. But he also works in business development, and his current position has him helping inventors and startups transition into commercialization in partnership with a large university health system. In this StartUp Health NOW episode we dig into how those worlds come together and learn what makes successful tech transfer partnerships.

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.