XLerate Health, a Louisville, Kentucky-based healthcare startup accelerator, announced its fifth class of health startups today. Eight startups will go through the company's 12-week course, which includes office space and mentorship in exchange for a 2 percent equity stake in the company.
In previous years, XLerate offered companies an optional $20,000 stipend in exchange for upping the equity stake to 6 percent. But that option is no more.
"We found that the best companies did not want or need a stipend," founder Robert Saunders explained in an email to MobiHealthNews.
The eight startups joining the program hail from across the midwest and the world, with one startup coming all the way from Lisbon, Portugal. Read on for the whole list.
We've written before about Indianapolis-based Digital Health Solutions. The startup, launched by two Indiana University School of Medicine professionals, is commercializing software it said will help pediatricians better target care for their patients. The tool, called Child Health Improvement through Computer Automation, or CHICA, augments electronic health records to help physicians better assess patient risks, identify problems earlier and better document care quality.
Also based in Louisville, Innovative Therapeutix is working on creating novel therapeutic devices to address medical and developmental issues in infants and children, starting with a smart baby bottle that uses biofeedback to help babies who have feeding difficulties. This unique and user-friendly technology will allow parents to support their child with feeding, thus preventing hospital readmissions, long-term feeding issues, and speech/language delays.
MyNurse is an on-demand platform for nurses, aides, physiotherapists, speech and occupational therapists, and home care teams. The Lisbon, Portugal-based team launched the product in January in Portuguese, English, Spanish, French and German. Caregivers are hired at a predetermined hourly rate with a user-reported star rating system.
St, Louis-based Pahoola offers video content for patient education and engagement. The videos inform patients and family members about medical procedures before, after, and during their hospital stay. The company plans to cover at least 80 medical procedures and offer a library of more than 400 videos.
RCM Brain, another Louisville startup, uses AI to drive revenue cycle workflow automation to increase the productivity of claims processing staff. RCM Brain is currently working with internal revenue cycle departments and third party claims processing service providers.
Thaddeus Medical Systems is focused on protecting temperature-sensitive medical products and specimens in the hospital. Its products, iQ+-ler and SmartSleeve, help maintain temperature as well as helping staff track the location and condition of products in realtime. The data generated by the system can be analyzed to improve supply chain efficiency. Thadeus Medical Systems hails from Rochester, Minnesota.
Finally, from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, TheraPeptics is, according to a release from XLerate "an emerging AI enabled therapy discovery and development company focused on developing novel, nature inspired AMPs/host defense peptides from animals with superior immune systems, carried by novel drug delivery tools to the right place at the right time to cure animals and humans." The company is developing therapies for viruses, bacteria, special immune cell subpopulations and cancer tissues of all types.
