Over one hundred applications, two days of boot camp, ten finalists and three hours of pitch fest with seven eminent jury members
27 October, 2015. Bangalore, India: Unitus Ventures, India’s leading venture seed fund supporting startups innovating for the masses, is pleased to announce that MedPrime Technologies has emerged as the winner of the second edition of the StartHealth competition. The runner-up for this competition is Neurosynaptic Commuications Pvt. Ltd., a portable connected lab-on-chip developer. The selected finalists pitched to an eminent jury panel of experts including Dr. Ashwin Naik (Vaatsalya healthcare), Siraj Dhanani (InnAccel), Payal Shah (Axilor), Dr. Vivek Ahuja (PATH), Hema Hattangady (Conssul Energy), LR Narayanan (Masterkey Holdings) and Dave Richards (Unitus Ventures).
MedPrime will receive a prize of INR 10 lakhs and an opportunity to pitch for participating in Unitus’ StartHealth investment Program that includes up to 50 lakhs of additional non-dilutive funding, an investment of up to INR 2 crore from Unitus Ventures and go-to-market support from StartHealth partners Narayana Health, Manipal Hospitals, PATH and Pfizer.
This competition saw, among its applicants, a higher percentage of startups in the medical device space (~24%), promising to take healthcare services to the grassroots levels. For the second edition of the competition, Unitus conducted a boot camp for the shortlisted semi-finalists with FORGE Accelerator. During the two-day workshop in Bangalore, the companies were mentored and coached on various aspects of the value chain (suppliers, customers, competition, etc.), innovation models and unit economics.
“Disruption in healthcare is possible only by innovations that serve the most ignored low-income populations by re-vectoring the dimensions of cost, access, and quality,” said Vishwanathan S, VP and GM at FORGE Accelerator. “The StartHealth competition is a great step that recognizes and rewards such pursuits by innovators and entrepreneurs.”
More About The WINNER
MedPrime Technologies The team at MedPrime is developing a cost-effective user-friendly infra-red based intravenous infusion monitoring system that tracks the flow of the fluid being infused in patients and helps avoid blood reflex.
“MedPrime is a great example of a medtech enterprise at an early stage, which is currently incubated at a leading academic institution, and shows tremendous potential. They have an excellent team with strong understanding of the on-ground challenges and have used their understanding to focus on solving a very specific problem,” said Dr. Ashwin Naik, Venture Advisor at Unitus Ventures and a StartHealth Competition jury member. “It is encouraging to see the StartHealth program attracting such capable teams working towards making healthcare better and affordable. We also acknowledge the many other entrants who were equally worthy and had some very promising ideas that they are pursuing with great passion.”
More About The RUNNER-UP
Neurosynaptic Communications Pvt. Ltd. 
Neurosynaptic is developing a point-of-care diagnostic device capable of performing dry chemistry tests including biochemistry tests, electrolyte tests, HBA1c, etc.
“The team at Neurosynaptics has strong experience in building indigenous technology in taking healthcare to the masses,” said one of the jury members, Hema Hattangady, also an investor in Unitus Ventures. “Given the lack of reliable diagnostic service provision in semi-urban and rural geographies, their point-of-care mobile device promises to disrupt the healthcare delivery in these areas. Through the medium of the StartHealth program, teams like Neurosynaptics can find the required support to bring about the next big transformation in the Indian healthcare ecosystem”
Other finalists include:
Advenio Tecnosys: Developing a handheld portable device capable of diagnosing retinal disorders in patients without the need for dilatation of eyes.
5C Network: An Uber-like service for radiology aggregating radiologists in the urban healthcare facilities and making their services available for tier-2/3 geographies.
Care and grow: Developing web-based kiosk solution for non-invasive diagnosis and monitoring of physiological and behavioral health among rural school children.
Coeo labs: Building intelligent algorithm based secretion management system to diagnose and cure patients suffering from Ventilator assisted pneumonia.
Technocratz: Developing cloud-based tele-radiology platform used to transmit, report and store images directly from the medical devices.
Prohealth: Developing Oxytrac, a connected device used to monitor respiratory vitals among patients suffering from Asthma-COPD.
Leowin: An electrical device that can attract, trap and kill mosquitoes thereby reducing the incidence of fatal vector borne infections like malaria, dengue and filaria.
Monitra Healthcare: A connected wearable device capable of real time monitoring and transmitting heart rate among patients suffering from cardiac rhythmic disorders.
About StartHealth Investment Program
StartHealth program was launched by Unitus Ventures, Pfizer Inc., PATH, Manipal Hospitals and Narayana Health in early 2015. This is an innovative program to provide up to INR 14 crore (US$2.2 million) in non-dilutive capital and venture seed investments to very early-stage startups seeking to enhance access to affordable technology-driven healthcare products and services for the low-income masses in India. It also offers for-profit healthcare startups with hands-on support, access to expert advisors and medical facilities, enabling them to more efficiently and effectively complete development and scale their operations in India.
About Unitus Ventures
The $23 million Unitus Ventures is the leading impact venture seed fund investing in startups innovating for the masses in India. Unitus invests in sectors including healthcare, education, mobile & consumer, retail & ecommerce, financial services, and agriculture. Founded in 2012, Unitus Ventures is part of the Unitus Group, a premier financial services group operating in India and other emerging markets since 2000. Unitus Ventures is based in Bangalore and Seattle. More about Unitus Ventures >
