Rock Health Debuts Second Class, Sends Incoming Batch To Work At Harvard Medical School
At TechCrunch Disrupt in May, ZocDoc CEO Cyrus Massoumi addressed an important question: Considering healthcare is such a hot-button issue right now, why is the healthcare space so underrepresented among startups? Part of the reason, the ZocDoc CEO ventured, was that many entrepreneurs don’t realize the size of the opportunity: Healthcare is a $2.7 trillion industry. Of course, there’s also the difficulty of tackling calcified, legacy infrastructures, those historically high barriers to entry, and the fact that many in the past have been burned by becoming too patient-centric.
Yet, in spite of the FDA slowing innovation and the Supreme Court toying with our hearts, the truth is that, over the last two years, we’ve seen an unprecedented number of healthtech startups arriving on the scene. Thanks to conferences like Health 2.0 and TEDMED, along with accelerators like Healthbox, Blueprint Health, and Rock Health, these companies are starting to get the attention (and capital) they need.
Case in point: Late last week, San Francisco and Boston-based healthtech accelerator Rock Health held demo day for its second batch of startups at Practice Fusion’s headquarters. The thirteen companies pitched their ideas for making healthcare cheaper, more social, intuitive, and just generally less of a pain in the ass. Even though these companies have a hard road ahead, there are ideas here that, with some iteration and funding, could have legs. And investors have started to take notice.
In fact, over 300 investors and advisors were in attendance at Rock Health’s demo day, including representatives from Kleiner Perkins, DST, Benchmark, Founders Fund, Kapor Capital, Khosla, and Bain to name a few. What’s more, five of the startups announced that they’d closed (or were soon to close) seed financing, including a $2.5 million raise for Agile Diagnosis and DocPhin’s announcement that it had secured funding from the Mayo Clinic — the practice/research/educator known for treating difficult cases and operating one of the top hospitals in the country.
Aside from helping its founders make industry connections and find funding, Rock Health is providing a valuable service by guiding/educating health startups on the kind of stuff your average consumer tech company doesn’t have to worry about, like government regulations (from the FDA to HIPAA compliance) and institutional sales to health providers.
Rock Health also just kicked off its third batch and the first to be located in Boston. Co-founder Halle Tecco tells us that they actually just sent seven of these startups to build their businesses at Harvard Medical School. “This is the first time that an incubator has sent startups into a hospital to work,” she said, “and we think it will be invaluable for the teams participating.” Think we’ll call this the new “Rock Health residency.”
The accelerator’s second batch of 13 are worth checking out, so, without further ado, here’s a peek at what they’re up to:
Sounds a bit like HealthRally and GymPact, no? But the points you earn on AchieveMint from livin’ the healthy life can be redeemed for actual, real world merchandise, like gift cards, and the like. Interestingly, insurance providers put up the money for these consumer rewards in exchange for advertising and branding opportunities on AchieveMint’s platform.
As the ZocDoc CEO said above, it’s all about building solutions that help doctors do their jobs better, and this Y Combinator and Rock Health-backed company is doing that by making critical diagnostic information more actionable, saving time and, hopefully, lives. Read our coverage of Agile Diagnosis’s beta launch here.
As an example of this, the company is initially targeting breast cancer patients by helping patients and their families create customized lists of questions to ask doctors. Plans to monetize include connecting pharma companies with people willing to volunteer for clinical trials. Using a similar approach to Cancer.net.