Five early-stage startups building innovative solutions in health care have been chosen as the inaugural participants in the Sustainable Health Initiative (SHI), a business accelerator established earlier this year by a partnership between the Yale Institute for Global Health (YIGH) and the CoWrks Foundry and RMZ Foundation in India.
The announcement of the inaugural SHI participants was made at a launch event last month in Bangalore, India, which brought together health-care entrepreneurs, policy experts and investors to create a community with a shared focus on introducing new products and scalable solutions to the Indian health-care sector.
“Around the world, we are facing both new challenges and growing health and economic disparities,” said Sten Vermund, dean of the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH), in a statement. “The scope and scale of these challenges is such that the public sector cannot fully address them without private-sector ingenuity and creativity.
“As the first signature program of the Yale Institute for Global Health, we are very excited to launch innovative solutions that will have a significant impact on the health of communities around the world,” Vermund added.
The five chosen ventures will each receive $70,000 in seed capital and mentorship from Yale faculty and alumni, and will benefit from a network of Indian industry experts and structured sessions to help startups evolve into a sustainable and scalable business model, refine their market strategy, and build a sustainable enterprise.
Selected from more than 250 companies in India and the U.S., five were selected based on criteria including: potential health impact, feasibility, and affordability for low- and middle-income country markets.
The selected startups include Khushi-TB, which was developed by Yale students to treat and manage tuberculosis in urban centers in India, and four start-ups from India: MetaMagics, JioVio Healthcare, Naps & Nibbles, and Onward Assist.
The Yale Institute for Global Health was established in 2017 to bring together expertise and knowledge from Yale with partners around the globe to improve and accelerate health and health equity for people worldwide.
