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Health Care Accelerator Raises $7M for New Initiatives

Nina Nashif

Nina Nashif (healthbox.com)

17 April 2014. Healthbox Global Partners LLC, a Chicago-based business accelerator in the health care industry, says it raised $7 million to fund its operations in six cities in the U.S. as well as support new business models for encouraging innovation. Healthbox is a joint venture of Intermountain Healthcare, a health delivery system in Utah; Health Care Service Corporation, a health insurance company operating several Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in the U.S.; and health care investment company Chicago Pacific Founders that contributed to the financing, along with other undisclosed investors.

Healthbox offers a four-month training, business development, and financing process for start-ups in the health care industry. The company says since it began in 2012, Healthbox established relationships with 20 industry organizations, investing in some 50 new companies. Its portfolio includes start-ups aiming to improve operational efficiency of health care providers, consumer wellness, evidence-based decision-making, and complex disease management. Other companies are working in patient-centered medical practices, data infrastructures, telehealth, and new models for care.

Nina Nashif, founder and CEO of Healthbox, notes in a company statement, “We provide the necessary access and insight for serious health care entrepreneurs to grow businesses in this complex industry and for the industry to source the solutions that they need to improve care delivery and outcomes.”

The new financing is expected to support Healthbox’s creation of regional accelerators in Boston, Tampa, Salt Lake City, London, and Nashville, as well as Chicago, all in 2014. The company says the new accelerators will expand Healthbox’s reach to another 50 start-up enterprises.

In addition to its geographic expansion, Healthbox plans to use the new funding to offer three new types of business services:

– A marketplace known as Healthbox Solutions, to help its portfolio companies introduce and market their new products and services to early adopters in the health care industry

– Adapting its business development curriculum to internal operations of current health care companies and organizations, in a service called Foundry, to encourage entrepreneurial solutions and commercialization of innovative ideas

– Partnering with health care organizations to offer financial support for new models in innovation, a service that remains largely undefined at this stage.

Healthbox says it is now accepting applications for its regional accelerator programs, beginning in Boston in July 2014.

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