MedStartr grew out of running the world’s first healthcare innovation meetup group in NYC in 2008. Our original Health 2.0 NYC Meetup group, which we still run today, helped spark a revolution in healthcare that has led to the creation and growth of one of the world’s largest network of healthcare innovation communities in the world. With over 250 such groups now, wherever we go we can find like-minded communities, often ones that we helped get started. In 2010 we ran our first healthcare innovation pitch contest in NYC in an event called “Pitch Yourself Into the Shark Tank!” Since then we have run over 190 events with over 70 contests in 25 cities and now call it the MedMo World Tour. We do this for three main reasons
- Grow the Movement: To seed and grow healthcare innovation communities around the globe and expand the global Medstartr healthcare innovation community. While we have always livestreams and published our events online, there is nothing like being in the room with 100 to 2,000 other healthcare innovation enthusiasts to help support local efforts to organize and grow their communities.
- Help More Startups: We know not every great startup is going to come to NYC or be from NYC and we want to help as many as we can with connections, acceleration and investment… so we come to you.
- Help More Partners: We want to meet and engage with more stakeholders, partners, and institutions.
How Can We Help You?
We have partnered with Community Organizers, Civic leaders, Medical Associations, Hospital Systems, large Corporations and conferences to engage local, national and global audiences wherever we go. Our Open Innovation Programs have helped passionate people, economic development organizations, and groups of local healthcare leaders build some of the strongest healthcare innovation communities in the world (HHS, NYC, New Orleans, Ireland,…) For Associations (AMA, AHA,…) we have created innovation networks and pitch contest series that have become key new member benefits and conference elements. For Hospital systems and institutions (HCA, Oschner,…) we bring innovations to them that solve real problems through crowd sourcing both internally and from around the world. Last, but not least, for corporations and investors (GE, Takeda, Aetna, Verizon,…) we help make sure the broadest reach and crowd validation are done before a decision is made about which companies to invest time, partnerships and resources and / or funding into. To learn more or to bring the MedMo World Tour to you, tell us how and where we can help here.
How Has COVID Affected the World Tour?
In the wake of COVID-19 our planned 2020 tour went virtual, first with Zoom Events and then on clubhouse we ran over 700 events on all topics in healthcare innovation. With six live events so far in 2021 and hundreds of virtual ones, we are proud to have had over 35,000 attendees engaged and are reaching ever-larger audiences, online and off. We plan on doing 20-25 live events around the world in 2022 so we hope to see you soon in a Healthcare Innovation Community near you! Fill out this form if you want to work with us on that.
How are the MedMo Pitch Contests Judged?
We are all about our crowds, so of course, our judging process has always been very much about what the amazing people watching live and online think. We started with an applause-o-meter and have moved to voting by everything from twitter analytics and texting to vote to paper and online surveys to the full MedStartr Platform which includes a review on every project page. Go check those out here! We also have some of the most amazing people in healthcare in the crowd and sharing the stage as judges. Drawn from the MedStartr Mentor network and representing each of the key stakeholder groups (Patients, Care Providers, Institutions, Partners, and Investors) our judging panels ask tough questions and help pick the winners. The crowd can also always vote as well and ask questions by tweeting to the hashtag #MedMo, texting to vote, or filling out our online or even paper survey forms.
What Do Teams Win?
In addition to bragging rights and being held up on a pedestal as one of the best new ideas in healthcare, our contests are often sponsored by partners looking for new teams to invest in, partner up with, do pilots with and more. At the very least winning gets a team into the MedStartr Ventures due diligence process that often ends in an offer of investment and our MedStartr Acceleration Program that works great for early-stage startups. If we invest it usually begins with 100K and can be up to 2M in later rounds. Our Accelerator partners also kick in over 200K in services that are perfect for startups! We also will take you on tour with us and accelerate your startup for up to three years. Learn more about our acceleration program here.
How Do I know when the MedMo World Tour or other MedStartr Event is in my area?
Join the global community here. You can customize your preferences too! If you want to focus on NYC, please join that community here. Either of those will get you on our newsletter list and stay informed of our next stops!
Startups:
Want to get on the tour? By all means, we encourage you to Apply to Pitch here.
Investors:
Our funds are open to institutional investors, accredited investors, strategic partners, corporate venture groups and family offices. Learn more about our fund at MedStartr.vc, email us here, or apply to attend one of our Investor Webinars here.
Partners, Institutions or Municipal Leaders:
Interested in bringing the MedMo World tour or one of our massive Open Innovation Programs to your organization or area? That’s great! You can email us here, book a call here, or fill out this form to tell us what you are looking for.