The healthcare industry needs to solve 10 massive challenges – Moonshots as they are called – Access to Care, Cost to Zero, Cure Disease, Cancer, Women’s Health, Longevity, Mental Health, Brain Health, Nutrition, and Children’s Health.
Offering part of the solution for any of these would be a massive breakthrough for any startup, but StartUp Health is aiming to solve all of them.
We have a 25-year plan to reach these 10 health Moonshots, Unity Stoakes, co-founder and president of company, told CoFounder Magazine. StartUp Health calls itself a movement, but it is functioning more like an investment firm offering much more than cash injections.
The 2011-founded StartUp Health has the world’s largest portfolio of digital health companies, with some 200 companies from 18 countries.
We think this army of entrepreneurs can help the wellbeing of everyone on the planet, Stoakes said, adding that the key to success lies in acting as the founders’ networking platform.
We consider our team members to be co-founders. We have 450 team members – a co-founder club supporting each other, he said.
“It’s a lonely journey to build a startup. There is nothing better than to have other co-founders there to talk to,” Stoakes described in the interview. “We have all these passionate entrepreneurs who are reimaging the future of healthcare.”
When growing the portfolio, StartUp Health is focusing on “batteries-included” entrepreneurs, who build companies with a long timeframe in their mind, like StartUp Health has itself. “We think in terms of years and decades,” Stoakes said.
Just like many other early-stage investors, Startup Health is helping the founders to raise money, gain customers and increase traction. Despite the decades-long perspective, 12 of its companies have already been acquired by firms including Intel, WebMD, Under Armour and Zimmer Biomet, and its companies have raised over 640 million dollars of funding since 2012.
The company – co-founded by Stoakes and Steven Krein – is chaired by former Time Warner CEO, Jerry Levin. Notable strategic partners and investors include AARP, Aurora Health Care, California Health Care Foundation, Children’s Hospital Colorado, University of Colorado, UCHealth, Steve Case, Mark Cuban, Esther Dyson, Brad Feld, Genentech, GE Venture, Janssen Research & Development, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, SAP and SeventySix Capital.
With a team like this and a 450-strong founders’ network, they can do nothing but shoot for the moon.
