Kansas City’s Crossroads District is about to become even more eclectic and bustling than usual.
About six months after the initial announcement—and extensive planning, hiring and renovating—10 mobile health-related startups from around the country and Australia have landed at the inaugural Sprint Mobile Health Accelerator powered by Techstars.
Arriving at the space Tuesday—in 15-minute intervals, welcomed in to the tune of their favorite songs—they dove right into a mentor-driven three-month program, making introductions, early pitches and starting the conversation with Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. They’ll be paired with a number of Sprint, Techstars, health care and local experts, including Silicon Prairie entrepreneurs such as Alex Altomare, Joni Cobb, Maria Meyer, Tina Peterson, Davyeon Ross, Toby Rush and Michael Wetta.
“Sprint is proud to be part of the innovation movement in the health care space,” said Kevin McGinnis, vice president of Pinsight Media+, a division of Sprint. “The impact these companies can have on so many people in both the technology and health care industries is tremendous.”
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According to a release, a few of the core focuses are wellness, chronic illness, animal health and big data—which may be in the form of hardware, software, transformative services, data and mobile apps. As it typically does, Techstars will provide teams with $20,000 in seed funding and the option of a $100,000 convertible debt note.
After honing their models for three months, teams will end the program with a pitch June 5 to national and Kansas City investors and leaders.
On the day of the announcement in September, we asked Techstars and Sprint about what happens when that final day arrives. David Cohen, founder and CEO of Techstars, said there’s good reason to believe it won’t be the end of the trip for many of the companies.
“Techstars has been running for seven years,” he said. “Historically, half of the companies that come from outside the area stay. We find the ones that stay tend to be the better ones, who also make use of the mentors they’ve built relationships with.”
And though the clear objective is to build great early-stage companies into major influencers in mobile health, McGinnis was just as excited about what this all could mean for Kansas City.
“We believe it’s a strong validation of how strong Kansas City’s ecosystem has become,” he said. “It’s not just about building companies and growing companies; it’s attracting talent. This shines a light beyond our region on what’s happening here.”
The 10 teams in the inaugural Sprint Mobile Health Accelerator powered by Techstars:
- Akibah San Jose
- Fitbark New York
- Lifeline Response Chicago
- Medicast Palo Alto, Calif.
- Ollo Mobile Brisbane, Australia
- Prime San Francisco
- Sickweather Baltimore
- Symptom.ly Salt Lake City
- Tenacity Health Boston
- Yosko Cambridge, Mass.
