1.7 Million for Cardio Startups

The 2015 American Heart Association Crowd Challenge broke all records for the 16 companies that made the finals on MedStartr. In just 31 days the finalists closed 14 deals valued at over 1.7 million dollars with some of the biggest names in Healthcare. Just like last year’s winners, almost all the companies were pre-revenue when the challenge started but they aren’t anymore! Congratulations to first place winner Intelliquit who squeaked by Moving Analytics but mere hundredths of a point. You can find and fund them all on MedStartr.com. Two of the finalists, Intelliquit and the Women’s Heart App are still going strong with open campaigns that you can still get involved with.

The AHA’s Open Innovation program is a big winner too, driving an immediate return on innovation investment in excess of 35x.  The goal of the program was to drive the best new ideas that will help the AHA meet it’s AHA2020 goal of reducing cardiovascular disease by 20% by 2020.  With over a dozen great new ideas getting out to millions of people just from the last three challenges we are proud to be able to help in productive ways.

This never would have happened with the support of a crowd that cares about driving innovation in healthcare.  Our Judges, including the fabulous Regina Holliday and Dr. Dave Albert as well as a the #HDChat, #HCLDR, #H2NYC, #Hi2Forum and #HCSM crowds that spread the word online.  With Dr. Albert’s help we started the #HDChat for Heart Disease on Wednesday nights at 8 PM which, combined with the efforts of the finalists and hundreds of patients, doctors, nurses, and partners who care deeply about improving cardiovascular care, helped get the word our over 8.5 million times on Twitter alone.  The winner was invited to audition for ABC’s Shark Tank and is on stage again next week at the New York Venture Capital Association’s Health and Biotech Summit. Thank you to the vast crowd that has helped with this challenge and of course, to the AHA for supporting this new way to drive innovation in healthcare faster and better.

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