Dreamit Health Gets $325,000 Grant
With its high costs and confusing insurance policies, the health care industry is ripe for disruption. Who better to do that than young, energetic startup companies?
Dreamit Health certainly thinks that a little startup energy will go a long way in reshaping health care, and on Thursday, announced that it received a $325,000 grant from Blackstone Charitable Foundation.
Dreamit Health is an offshoot of Dreamit Ventures and was developed in collaboration with Penn Medicine and Independence Blue Cross. It serves as an accelerator to help high-potential health care startups develop their businesses — offering funding, mentorship and access to customers and investors. Its most recent class included a mouthpiece that detects concussions and a patch that analyzes sweat to test for dehydration.
The new influx of cash will go a long way: Dreamit Health will accept more companies into its program and host on-site learning events at Philadelphia-area health care institutions. Opening doors like that is invaluable to a startup looking for input or hoping to launch pilot programs.
“This grant will allow more early stage digital health companies to participate in Dreamit Health and bring their world-changing innovations to market while deepening our roots in Philadelphia’s tech community, where we’ve been supporting entrepreneurs for nearly a decade,” said Dreamit CEO Avi Savar in a statement.
Dreamit Health was the second-most active health care investor in the United States in 2015. For 2016, Dreamit has $1 million earmarked for investments in health care tech. To date, Dreamit has invested more than $3.1 million in health care companies that have participated in its program and those companies have raised nearly $12.3 million in additional capital, the company reported.
University of Pennsylvania Health System CEO Ralph W. Muller said: “We’ve learned a tremendous amount about how to open the right doors and provide valuable guidance and resources for entrepreneurs seeking to improve health care, and can now apply those lessons learned at a larger scale.”
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