2020 StartUp Health Festival: The Power of Collaboration
More Than 2,000 Health Transformers, investors and innovators head to San Francisco for the 8th Annual StartUp Health Festival to focus on Health Moonshots
- A two-day experience with the world’s most innovative, passionate and interesting Health Transformers, investors, world leaders and industry executives who all care about achieving health moonshots
- Learn from extraordinary leaders like LPGA professional golfer Michelle Wie, Google Health’s David Feinberg, MD, Novartis’s Bertrand Bodson, Salesforce’s Ashwini Zenooz, MD, Mental Health advocate Susan Schneider Williams and 100+ founders of StartUp Health Companies to share progress updates on their Health Moonshots
- Watch the premiere of StartUp Health TV, streaming over 100 live interviews with top health entrepreneurs from around the world
- Patient stories from the Health Moonshot Stage with 20 leading healthtech CEOs
- 1,500+ dealmaking meetings scheduled in the StartUp Health Festival Connect Lounge with health entrepreneurs, investors and industry leaders
- Two free livestream channels to broadcast all programming to Health Transformers around the globe (tune in at startuphealth.com)
- Special Launch Party invite to NEO.Life Book Party (get your tickets here)
StartUp Health, a global organization dedicated to investing in entrepreneurs working to achieve health moonshots, is kicking off a new decade in health innovation with their 8th Annual StartUp Health Festival in San Francisco, CA on January 13–14th. Featuring more than 275 entrepreneurs from StartUp Health portfolio companies, and leaders in health innovation like Toby Cosgrove, Google Cloud and Cleveland Health Clinic Advisor; Esther Dyson, Executive Founder of Wellville; Michael Acton Smith, CEO and Co-founder of Calm; and Susan Schneider Williams, wife of the late Robin Williams and advocate for Lewy Body Dementia Awareness, the StartUp Health Festival will bring together more than 2,000 inspiring change makers in health and wellness to focus on solving the world’s biggest health challenges.
“The StartUp Health Festival is a dynamic, collaborative experience focused on achieving Health Moonshots,” said Unity Stoakes, President, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of StartUp Health. “The event space is designed intentionally to promote dialogue, collaboration and real-time deal-making between leaders and innovators across all levels of the health ecosystem. We structured the two-day agenda in a way that ensures each person who attends — be they an entrepreneur, VC, industry leader, patient, journalist, filmmaker, or health enthusiast — is not just an attendee, they’re an active participant.”
“The event space is designed intentionally to promote dialogue, collaboration and real-time deal-making between leaders and innovators across all levels of the health ecosystem.” –Unity Stoakes, StartUp Health’s President, Co-founder and Managing Partner
At the 2020 Festival, the Connect Lounge, a deal-making salon and networking floor, will host over 1,500 pre-scheduled business meetings between world class investors, VCs, industry partners and top health entrepreneurs. The Health Moonshot Stage will feature more than 40 fireside chats and health innovation founder panels with some of the biggest names in health innovation, including:
- Bertrand Bodson, Chief Digital Officer, Novartis
- Toby Cosgrove, MD, board member of Cleveland Clinic, Google and RxRevu
- Esther Dyson, Executive Founder, Wellville
- David Feinberg, MD, Vice President of Google Health, Google
- Dean Ornish, MD, President & Founder, Preventive Medicine Research Institute
- Michelle Wie, Professional Golfer, LPGA
- Michael Acton Smith, CEO and Co-founder, Calm
- Susan Schneider Williams, Fine Artist, Passionate Advocate for Brain Health and Lewy Body Dementia Awareness, wife of the late Robin Williams
- Ashwini Zenooz, MD, SVP & GM for Healthcare and Life Sciences, Salesforce
This year, an entire floor of the event venue will be dedicated to the premier of StartUp Health TV with free global streaming access. On Monday and Tuesday, over 100 interviews with Health Transformers from the StartUp Health portfolio will be broadcast to StartUp Health TV via livestream on startuphealth.com, along with programming from the Health Moonshot Stage. Similar to previous years, the StartUp Health Festival offers a measure of hope that women are finally leading the charge in guiding health innovation. At the 2020 Festival:
- 41% of StartUp Health portfolio companies in attendance this year have a female co-founder
- 35% of scheduled speakers on stage and in front of the camera in the StartUp Health TV Studio are women
- 33% of registered attendees self-identify as female.
Health Transformers from the StartUp Health portfolio that will be in attendance at the 2020 Festival represent each of the organization’s 11 Health Moonshots (list of companies in attendance by Moonshot below):
- Access to Care (companies A-M and N-Z)
- Cost to Zero
- Cure Disease
- End Cancer
- Women’s Health
- Children’s Health
- Nutrition & Fitness
- Brain Health
- Mental Health & Happiness
- End Addiction
- Longevity
Tune into the free livestream and watch online at startuphealth.com beginning at 10:00am PST on Jan 13 and 9:30am PST on Jan 14.
“We’re coming into the 2020 StartUp Health Festival with a new energy,” said StartUp Health CEO, Co-Founder and Managing Partner Steven Krein. “We’re energized because we see the accelerating real world impact being made by our global army of Health Transformers. After investing in more than 500 entrepreneurs and 300 companies, our plan is no longer just an equation based on an idea. It’s a scalable platform and community we are proud of, and from which we can keep improving health for all.”
At this year’s Festival, StartUp Health will build upon its reputation as an advocate for the patient voice. Like at the 2019 Festival, this year, a number of entrepreneurs from the StartUp Health portfolio have been invited to team up with patients on the Health Moonshot Stage.
“At StartUp Health, we offer a counter balance to the hype around shiny new tech,” said StartUp Health’s Portfolio Director Polina Hanin. “We don’t just look at the ROI, we focus on the important missions — the health moonshots — that will drive the improvement of health and wellness for billions of lives. The purpose of inviting patients on stage to share their stories is to listen to the individuals that are most impacted by the efforts of health innovation.”
“The purpose of inviting patients on stage to share their stories is to listen to the individuals that are most impacted by the efforts of health innovation.” –Polina Hanin, StartUp Health’s Portfolio Director
In addition to progress updates on StartUp Health’s plan to achieve health moonshots by 2040, the organization plans to announce details of their Health Moonshot Investment model at the Festival. In 2020, StartUp Health will be inviting the world’s leading organizations, governments and wealthiest families who care as much about impact as financial return, to join their movement. Krein issued this call to action initially at Australia’s premier investor event, the 2019 Sohn Hearts and Minds Conference held at the Sydney Opera House in November. StartUp Health will use the 2020 Festival as an additional launchpad for what Krein and Stoakes believe will become an important new model for investing in health that goes way beyond capital and adds a long-term and essential investment in collaboration.
“We realized early on that our initial plan would need to constantly evolve; it needed real world experience and feedback loops,” said Krein. “So quarter after quarter and year after year — through brute force, ongoing experiments and non-stop recalibrations — we’ve worked to continually improve our model and create a flywheel that accelerates growth.”
Global Partners Supporting StartUp Health’s Mission to Transform Health
The Festival is made possible with support from StartUp Health’s world-class partners including:
Chiesi, Novartis, Ping An, Advocate Aurora Health, Guidewell, Kaiser Permanente, Masimo, Otsuka, Bayer, California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), adjuvant.health, BEAR, BioQuest, Calm, Field Trip, Four Sigmatic, Vegan Rob’s and Zeel.
“Quarter after quarter and year after year — through brute force, ongoing experiments and non-stop recalibrations — we’ve worked to continually improve our model and create a flywheel that accelerates growth.” –Steve Krein, StartUp Health’s CEO, Co-Founder and Managing Partner
StartUp Health has the world’s largest health innovation portfolio with more than 300 companies across six continents and 25 countries and is backed by leading investors including Advocate Aurora Health, Chiesi, Steve Case, Mark Cuban, Esther Dyson, Brad Feld, GuideWell, Jason Finger, Jerry Levin, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Masimo, Novartis, Otsuka, Ping An and SeventySix Capital. Learn more at startuphealth.com.
Tune into the free livestream and watch online at startuphealth.com beginning at 10:00am PST on Jan 13 and 9:00am PST on Jan 14.
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