NYC-based Blueprint Health, a health-focused member of the TechStars Network, is announcing its inaugural class of startups today. The Winter program, which begins on January 9th, will be taking place in a 12,000 square foot loft in SoHo that will be shared with the NYC-based members of Health 2.0 starting later this month. Part of the loft may also be turned into a co-working space for other healthcare-focused area entrepreneurs.
When Blueprint opened up for applications in fall 2011, it listed a large group of mentors which included those who founded and helped lead companies like Amicas, Eliza, Everyday Health, Generation Health, Healthination, HelloHealth, Keas, Kryuus, Livestrong, MedCommons, Medivo, PatientsLikeMe, Phreesia, ShapeUp and ZocDoc.
Since then, it has added the following 10 mentors to its program:
- Andy Weissman – Partner, Union Square Ventures
- Dr. Paul Ehrlich – Chief Medical Officer, Cerner
- Jonathan Gordon – Strategy, New York Presbyterian Hospital
- Rachel Winokur – Head of Strategic Diversification, Aetna
- Jason Gorevic – CEO, Teladoc
- Jeff Hoffman – Senior Director Health Care Strategy, CVS
- Peter Preziosi – Health Innovation Strategist, Verizon
- Hamel Shah – Corporate Business Development, Allscripts
- Neal Sofian – Director Member Engagement, Premera
- Dr. Destry Sulkes – CoFounder, Medivo
Blueprint also has employees from CVS, Johns Hopkins, Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Permanente, Lockheed Martin, McKinsey Hospital Institute, Take Care Health Systems, Pfizer and WebMD on board. Its investment partners include Aberdare Ventures, ATV, Bessemer Venture Partners, Google Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, HLM Venture Partners, Milestone Venture Partners, Physic Ventures, Psilos and Radius Ventures and Windham Venture Partners.
The startups participating in Blueprint’s program, both now and in the future, will be focused on technology products for patients, doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, health plans or employers. The accelerator, however, will not be as focused on consumer-facing apps looking to gain traction.
The first class of startups joining the program include the following:
5 O’Clock Records (Draper, UT)
Led by Matthew Cottrell, 5 O’Clock Records helps doctors reduce phone calls by direct requests for medical records from health insurance companies, lawyers, and others to a website where the requester can submit request information, verification, and pay for the request with a credit card. Matthew is a serial healthcare entrepreneur who previously founded MediConnect.net, grew the business to $22 million revenue and sold it to private equity firm.
AHEAD Research (Baltimore, MD)
Led by Craig Monsen and David Do, AHEAD Research helps care management companies reduce call times by implementing triage best practices and large-scale data analysis of medical information. Craig and David are both Johns Hopkins medical school students and Ruby programmers. Craig designed and built a computer-based system for the diagnosis of heart disease using an electronic stethoscope, while David built a handheld device for blind people to detect people in their environments using a thermal camera.
AidIn (Boston, MA)
Led by Russ Graney and Michael Galbo, AidIn makes discharge planning easy by creating an online system to manage discharge planning coordination and billing with nursing agencies. Russ previously founded and led a high-performing charter school in Brooklyn and Michael previously started a company that converted waste into hydrogen and was a semi-finalist in MassChallenge.
iCouch (Shanghai, China)
Led by Brian Dear and Jessica Dear, iCouch provides a platform for counselors to conduct video counseling sessions and manage the billing process. Brian is a self-taught iOS and Rails programmer and creator of ClassCloud, a cloud-based classroom management system. Jessica has been a private practice counselor for over five years.
InquisitHealth (Secaucus, NJ)
Led by Ashwin Patel and Brijesh Patel, InquisitHealth connects recent and experienced patients to new patients based on medical procedure, surgery or treatment. Ashwin has a PhD from the Wharton and is an MD candidate from Weill-Cornell Medical College. Brijesh is experienced in web development, information architecture and product management.
Meddik (Philadelphia, PA)
Led by Tim Soo and Ben Shyong, Meddik is a search engine for health that ranks results based on a user’s symptom set, clinical attributes, and demographics. Tim is a Penn medical student and programmer who built Invisible Instrument, a Wiimote & iPhone gestural-based instrument that won an MTV Award. Ben is a Web-developer and programmer, having built a real-time transit tool for the Philadelphia transit system and started a bubble-tea restaurant.
Patient Communicator (New York, NY)
Led by Jeff Novich, Patient Communicator is a practice management solution that will help providers reduce phone calls related to refill requests, payment, and appointment scheduling. Jeff is serial entrepreneur, having previously founded an education start-up and a cab sharing iOS app, and has a computer science and physic degrees from Johns Hopkins and an MS from Columbia.
Procured Health (Dubai, UAE)
Led by Hani Elias and Will Danford, Procured Health will reduce hospital costs by improving medtech product evaluation and purchasing. Hani is a founding member of McKinsey’s Center for US Health System Reform, a Soros Fellow and holds a BA, JD and MPH from Harvard University. Will has led development of Facebook and ESPN mobile applications for the new Windows OS.
Needl (Minneapolis, MN)
Led by Rashaun Sourles and Michael Winikoff, Needl is a Q&A web platform that connects healthcare professionals to industry vendors. Previously, Rashaun spent 7 years in pharma sales at J&J and earned the “President’s Circle” designation, putting him in the top 10% of J&J reps worldwide based on sales. Michael previously started a technology consultancy focused on graphic design.
The inaugural class will also include two “floating founders” Tom Black (Madison, WI) and Janan Rajeevikaran (Toronto). Tom is a Navy veteran and a software developer whose primary dev stack is Ruby, JavaScript, HTML5 + CSS3, Rails, Sinatra, Node.js, Heroku, and a sprinkling of Java/C/C++. Janan has a degree in electrical engineering and has been programming for nearly a decade in about 20 languages.