StartUp Health, the organization behind a massive entrepreneurial healthcare effort, has chosen Denver to be its second regional network affiliate — after Finland.
StartUp Health Colorado will bring together CU Anschutz, Children’s Hospital Colorado and UCHealth to create a heath innovation hub in Denver for health entrepreneurs, investors and industry stakeholders. The partnership will focus on developing healthcare startups and supporting pre-existing Anschutz Medical Campus innovators and staff with tools, resources and programming.
“We’re excited to partner with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and chose Colorado to expand StartUp Health because of the entrepreneurial spirit and health focus in the region,” Steven Krein, co-founder and CEO of StartUp Health, said in a statement.
The program also aims to spotlight the Colorado healthcare and entrepreneurial community and advance it along the path to becoming a worldwide tech and healthcare innovation center. By giving the entrepreneurs StartUp Health will cultivate access to its resources, the program hopes to cross-pollinate ideas in Colorado with those from all over the world.
“Colorado is emerging as a leading startup hub in the country,” Director of CU Innovations at CU Anschutz Kim Muller said in a statement. “StartUp Health is bringing their knowledge and experience of building early stage health companies directly to the Rocky Mountain Region. We are confident that we will build long lasting relationships and partnerships with the entrepreneurs based right here in Colorado.”
Within the first three years, StartUp Health Colorado will collaborate with the three institutions on CU Anschutz’s campus to develop customized plans to build and commercialize more than 30 health startups. Startups will be selected based on how well their business plan aligns with the needs of the respected institution and the patients there.
Once StartUp Health Colorado selects a startup, the entrepreneurs will be accepted into the StartUp Health Academy, where they will have access to a lifetime coaching program and to Startup Health’s network of 30,000 industry leaders, entrepreneurs and investors the world over.
The program will receive funding from Startup Health, as well as the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade and the Advanced Accelerator Grant Program.
Startup Health has spent the past five years cultivating this global community of healthcare innovators. The program launched in 2011 with a 25 year plan to improve health worldwide by incubating innovative ideas in the digital healthcare realm.
StartUp Health previously opened collaborations with GE Ventures, the venture capital subsidiary of General Electric; Aurora Healthcare, a Milwaukee-based hospital, pharmacy and clinic system; and Finland’s ‘Silicon’ Vallila district in Helsinki. To date, Startup Health tallies 161 portfolio companies, 315 health transformers and a reach of more than 100,000 in its global community, built in only five years.
Startup Health Colorado is accepting applications from entrepreneurs interested in joining the effort. For more information and to apply, visit www.startuphealth.com/colorado.
Multimedia business & healthcare reporter Chloe Aiello can be reached via email at [email protected] or twitter.com/chlobo_ilo.
Subscribe to Denverite’s newsletter here.
