For startups, there are numerous paths for getting their name out there. One way, which Vator has been covering recently, are through startup competitions, but another popular method to get a foot in the door, as well as some funding and traction, are accelerators. These are programs that provide companies advice, guidance and various forms of support for startups in their early stages. They also often invest in the companies, for a certain equity stake.
The number of accelerators has exploded since the term was first used by Y Combinator when it started in 2005, followed by TechStars and 500 Startups, which have made their names through various successful alumni.
(Here's a great interview between Vator CEO Bambi Francisco and David Cohen and David Brown, the founders of TechStars, in 2014. TechStars was already seven years old and reviewing 12,000 startups a year.)
As of 2016, there was over $206 million being invested in 11,305 startups by 579 accelerator programs around the world. And those numbers have no doubt increased in the last few years. In the U.S. alone, the number of accelerators increased by an average of 50 percent each year between 2008 and 2014. Startups now have a wide variety of choices for which accelerator is best for them. Here's what the Harvard Business Review tallied about what to expect from these institutionalized programs for young startups.
Some programs are fairly general, accepting companies from a variety of different spaces. For other companies, though, it may help to join an accelerator that only focuses on their specific area. That's especially true for those in more specialized spaces, which will have their own unique challenges and regulations.
Here are some of the top accelerators (meaning those that have been around a few years and have already successfully graduated a number of startups) that are focused on mentoring companies in the digital health space:
(Note: Vator will be holding its latest healthcare salon, called The Future of Health Insurance, on Nov. 20. Get tickets here!)
Cedars-Sinai Accelerator says it "is transforming healthcare quality, efficiency, and care delivery by helping entrepreneurs bring their innovative technology products to market."
The company, which invests a $100,000 convertible debt note with a $5 million cap and no discount into every company that participates, offers a three month long program, which is broken down into three phases that are each one month:
The accelerator works with companies across every stage, "from functional prototypes to established commercially deployed products." The class size is around 11 startups and runs once or twice a year.
"While most of our companies already have a product and some traction, we have worked with very early stage companies who are pre-product (prototype) as well as those with established recurring revenue." While companies that have joined the program have raised anywhere from a few thousand dollars to over $10 million, the midpoint is typically between $500,000 to $5,000,000.
The companies that participate get access to four key things:
Startupbootcamp Digital Health Berlin is a one of many accelerators from Startupbootcamp, which says it supports early-stage tech founders "to rapidly scale their companies by providing direct access to an international network of the most relevant mentors, partners, and investors in their industry."
All Startupbootcamp programs last 3 months, typically between 10-14 weeks. Each Startupbootcamp accelerator program selects 10 startups from more than 500 global applicants. The company runs multiple programs in different cities per year.
Each startup receives €15K in cash, €450K+ in partner services, 6 months of free collaborative office space. Most programs also have industry-specific deals found on their program page. For those benefits, Startupbootcamp asks for between 6-8% equity, depending on the program.
Program benefits include:
Once graduated, startups become part of the Alumni Growth program, which provides them with a continued access to a global ecosystem of founders and mentors.
Dreamit HealthTech describes itself as "a growth-focused program for digital health, medical device, and diagnostic startups." It accepts 14 startups into its program twice a year.
It's a 14 week program that breaks down this way:
Kick-Off Week provides an opportunity to get to know the other companies in your cohort, listen to highly pragmatic and impactful presentations from the Dreamit Managing Directors, and do a deep dive into your business to identify potential weaknesses and areas for improvement so we all know where to focus energy during the program.
Time Commitment: Three to five hours of on-site work with Dreamit team members in Philadelphia each day for 3-4 days. Founders have time during these days to focus on their startups, but at least one founder must attend the Kickoff Week.
During Customer Sprint prep, your Managing Director and Program Manager prepare you for meeting with discerning enterprise organizations by critically analyzing and reshaping how to best present your company and product. We’ll dig deeply into how you present your problem statement, value proposition, differentiation, use cases, and more. We find most startups need deep changes in how they talk to customers in order to grow through pipeline materially. The Dreamit team will challenge your key assumptions just like a customer might test them, and they will provide suggestions to streamline and hone every aspect of your customer-facing pitch.
Most companies come into Dreamit with early sales under their belts yet still see a dramatic improvement in interest levels from customers after undergoing Customer Sprint Prep. This work helps founders to drive conversations forward to secure pilots, proofs of concept, and sales more quickly.
Time Commitment: One to two one-hour remote video calls with your Managing Director and Program Manager each week along with however much time you need between calls to put the recommendations and learnings into action.
Dreamit’s customer network includes top enterprise organizations in our core verticals, such as Independence Blue Cross, Strategic Property Partners, Penn Medicine, American Express, IBM, Intermountain Healthcare, Blackstone, Related, and more. The products these organizations use often become the industry standard. During a two-week Dreamit Customer Sprint, you visit the offices of these organizations to meet senior decision makers, discuss pilots and/or sales, and initiate partnerships.
Time Commitment: Over one or two weeks, founders meet two to four customers each day. These in-person meetings last anywhere from two to three hours, and take places in several cities, often including New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, D.C. and Tampa. If accepted into Dreamit, you must complete at least one week of the Customer Sprint during your cohort. If you can’t spend two weeks in nonstop meetings with customers, you have the option to defer one week of Customer Sprints to a later program cycle.
In advance of the Investor Sprint, Dreamit startups receive intensive pitch prep from their Managing Director and Program Manager to refine their stories, sharpen their decks, and challenge their most essential underlying assumptions. After pitch prep, founders go through demanding Mock VC Meetings with the Dreamit team and experienced investors from the Dreamit community. We usually see deeply material changes to startup pitch decks, how they answer questions, and how they handle themselves in investor meetings.
Time Commitment: One to three one-hour virtual video calls with your Managing Director and Program Manager each week, plus any additional time a founder might need to make changes to presentations. Three or four Mock VC Meetings conducted via video calls that typically last approximately thirty minutes each.
The Dreamit program culminates in a two-week, bi-coastal Investor Sprint. Founders meet with twenty to thirty investors in one-on-one, in-person meetings at investors’ offices. Dreamit’s Investor Sprint is a faster, more efficient way to build relationships with investors, raise capital, find lead investors, and get meaningful introductions. This Investor Sprint has proven much more effective than the standard “Demo Day” or pitch event offered by most programs.
Time Commitment: Two weeks of meetings in the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, New York City, and possibly Boston and/or DC depending on your vertical. You will likely have two to four meetings with investors each day, typically lasting anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour each. If you can’t spend two weeks in nonstop investor meetings or you are not yet ready to raise your round, you have the option to defer one or both weeks of Investor Sprints to a later program cycle.
Because Dreamit is a hybrid accelerator model, with founders participating in the 14-week program both virtually and in person, over fifty percent of the Dreamit program takes place virtually. Even with the maximum five weeks of in-person work and meetings during the fourteen-week program, founders have plenty of time outside of meetings to focus on building their businesses. Additionally, Dreamit allows founders to defer one week of the Customer Sprint and one or both weeks of the Investor Sprint to best suit their needs and time constraints.
Dreamit gets the right to invest up to $500K and receives a small amount of advisor equity, though for companies that are earlier in their development but would still receive meaningful benefit from our full program, Dreamit may consider alternative investment structures.
Part of what Dreamit offers is coaching, including feedback and insights during weekly meetings with Managing Director Adam Dakin and Program Manager Ethan Wergelis-Isaacson.
Bayer G4A says it is "driven to make a difference and change the experience of health, together with the brightest entrepreneurs."
The company has two tracks for the G4A Partnerships: Growth and Advance. Growth track will be reserved for early stage startups with a minimal viable product (Bootstrapped-Series A) with on-going validation or published findings and the Advance Track will be reserved for companies which are more mature who have products already in the market.
For the Growth track, companies will be given EUR 50,000 to EUR 100,000. In addition to healthcare technology funding, they are also provide a dedicated workspace (Berlin, DE) and mentorship from industry experts. For the Advance track, successful companies will receive EUR 50K - 100K with follow-on milestone-based payments. The firm selects 11 startups per cohort.
Program benefits include:
In addition to close collaboration with Consumer Health Category and and Pharmaceutical Health Therapeutic Area experts, startups are paired with senior Bayer executives. This multi-level approach to mentoring provides invaluable insight and opportunities that last well beyond the cohort.
Startup Creasphere believes that "young innovative health tech companies hold immense potential and deserve their own dedicated program to accelerate their success." The company is looking for companies that innovate or disrupt the current healthcare value chain, specifically in digital biomarkers, digital laboratory solutions for technicians, personalized healthcare, smart maintenance, and big data/analytics.
It mostly invests in seed stage and Series A companies, but says its also open to participating in Series B and later rounds.
Check size typically range between $25,000 and $500,000 with a median investment size of $100,000, with no equity requirement, and its objective is to invest in at least 1/3 of the companies that are accepted into each batch. Each batch takes place over a period of around 12 weeks.
Program benefits include office space in one of Munich’s top startup clusters, including any other infrastructure such as meeting spaces, event area, kitchen, meeting rooms of different sizes and internet access. All drinks and coffee are free. It also provides personalized mentorship with ots corporate partners to help startups strengthen their business model and scale within the European health landscape.
The program ends with an Expo Day where startups pitch and demo to corporate partners, VCs, angel investors, and the press.
DigitalHealth.London Accelerator "aims to speed up the adoption of technology in London’s NHS, relieving high pressure on services and empowering patients to manage their health."
It works with 20-30 high potential start-ups and SMEs each year, at any stage of the innovation cycle, though they have a product or solution that is well-defined and are ready to start building their evidence base.
While the accelerator can connect companies to relevant funding opportunities, it does not provide direct funding or take any equity in startups.
Companies accepted onto the program will have the opportunity to take part in workshops and training, “meet the expert” sessions, one to one clinics, and other events and learning opportunities hosted and delivered by the Accelerator and its clinical, topical, and business experts.
Each company is also assigned an “NHS Navigator”: an experienced professional from the NHS with the expertise to understand their needs and share expertise and advice on products in development, NHS navigation, and business models.
The program also provides opportunities to connect with NHS stakeholders, industry investors, patients, and other healthtech innovators.
Blueprint Health calls itself "a community of healthcare entrepreneurs helping build the next generation of healthcare IT companies."
It invests $20,000 in 20 healthcare IT companies each year, out of 1,000 that apply. Each program lasts three months, helping startups gain customers, raise capital, build marketing and sales collateral, and refine an investor pitch.
Companies are primarily selected on three criteria: team, coachability, and business model.
"We look for teams of resourceful and efficient problem solvers and with complementary backgrounds. Your team should be able to sell as well as build and execute on your product or service. Coachability entails our assessment of your ability to interact and benefit from interactions with our mentors and community."
Companies that have joined Blueprint have been generating up to $1 million in revenue and have had as much as $1M in funding prior to joining Blueprint Health. About one-third of its alumni already had customers when they joined the program, an additional one-third were ready to make sales, and one-third were not much more than an idea.
For participation, Blueprint Health receives a 6 percent common equity stake in each company. This is also a pre-option pool and pre-investor capital. Blueprint Health usually ends up with less than 4% of the common stock after a company's seed round.
After the program ends, Blueprint continues to help its alumni founders build and grow their companies and provide them with resources.
The Launchpad Digital Health Ground Zero Program provides "an immersive program for entrepreneurs desiring to pressure-test and expand their early-stage businesses."
Companies that participate are pre-seed, as the goal of this program is to give participants the tools to build a company that can successfully complete institutional seed funding.
It's a 12 month program that includes 12 startups, which can be anywhere from Seed to Series B stage. The companies that are selected receive up to $500,000 seed funding.
Additional program benefits include:
Science Center’s Digital Health Accelerator "supports digital health companies ready to transition from research and development to sales."
The DHA provides selected companies with funding, collaborative workspace, professional mentorship, and introductions to key healthcare stakeholders and investors in the Greater Philadelphia region. Participating companies accelerate from prototype development to customer acquisition. DHA curriculum matches companies to professionals with specific skills to help companies meet their individual milestones.
During the 12-month program, the accelerator chooses around six or seven early-stage healthcare companies, in which it invests up to $50,000 cash in operational support.
It also provides:
Nex Cubed’s Digital Healthcare Accelerator "is a customized, semi-remote, four-month startup accelerator focused on pairing technically, clinically, and operationally talented founders with Healthcare subject matter experts that work with teams on a daily basis, preparing the startups for investment and enterprise readiness."
The San Diego-based accelerator is semi-remote, so startups don't have to move to San Diego to be a part of the program. It has offices in La Jolla, and teams also have access to offices San Francisco and New York.
Nex Cubed typically invests $25,000 in exchange for 6% common stock. It holds programs twice a year, which it selects around seven companies.
Program benefits include:
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