500 Startups announced recently that it would be using AngelList exclusively for startup applications to the incubator. AngelList is a service that matches early-stage startups with investors. Now Rock Health, the accelerator for health tech startups, is making a similar move, taking applications exclusively (here) through AngelList for its fifth class.
Rock Health founder Halle Tecco explains that the accelerator was already making startups create profiles on AngelList but the network has grown into a platform for startups to manage several pieces of business, and it made sense to make the switch over. She adds that it just makes the application experience a seamless process. In Rock Health’s last class, the accelerator received 1,500 applications.
For background, Rock Health startups have raised over $43 million in funding to date, averaging $900,000 per startup, not including Rock Health’s investment from limited partners Aberdare Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Mayo Clinic, and Mohr Davidow Ventures. Other Rock Health partners include Accel Partners, Fenwick & West, GE, Genentech, Harvard Medical School, Kaiser Permanente, Montreux Equity Partners, NEA, Qualcomm Life, Quest Diagnostics, Silicon Valley Bank, UnitedHealth Group, and UCSF.
Currently, AngelList has close to 1,000 angel investors who have recorded an investment in a healthcare startup, and there are around 4,000 Health Tech startups on AngelList.
There are other accelerators like MuckerLab, TechStars, AngelPad, Lemnos Labs, Capital Factory and LaunchPad LA who take applications both through their normal processes and through AngelList. But we’re seeing more accelerators simply switch over to AngelList for applications. As Tecco explains, it doesn’t make sense for startups to do the same work twice. And AngelList has given accelerators the ability to create customized applications on the network.