The StartUp Health Program

The Big Idea – Our Health Moonshot

One of the things that makes StartUp Health unique is our focus on achieving real results in healthcare. We believe that helping a startup raise funds is just the beginning. Equally important is helping a startup move the needle on better diagnostics, treatments, and cures. 

That core philosophy – our drive to achieve audacious health goals or Health Moonshots – shapes how we work in a few big ways. Over the years we’ve defined more than a dozen health moonshots and unified founders around those challenges. 

Impact-Driven Funding

StartUp Health is funded by mission-aligned organizations and family offices who are passionate about achieving measurable results. Recent Health Moonshot initiatives have been supported financially by the Helmsley Charitable Trust, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), and Gates Ventures.  

Our Leadership

The StartUp Health Impact Board consists of advisors, many of whom have been with StartUp Health since its inception, that provide strategic advice, insights into emerging innovation and who engage their networks and serve as program faculty. 

Mission control for each health moonshot is the Moonshot Impact Board. The Moonshot Impact Board shapes mission direction, prioritizes tasks, enlarges the network, mentors founders, and creates performance metrics. It will comprise 10 innovative, mission-focused members from six key domains: entrepreneurship, philanthropy, academia, industry, investment, and patient advocacy.

Led by co-founders Steven Krein and Unity Stoakes, StartUp Health’s executive team brings together decades of experience in health innovation. Each team member contributes their personal passion for transforming health, along with deep domain expertise spanning legal, management, fundraising, and media.

Health Transformers

Our core work is to support entrepreneurs and academic founders so that they can survive the challenging road of a healthcare startup, thrive personally, and ultimately commercialize and scale their business. We call these founders Health Transformers because they have demonstrated a series of important traits, like a willingness to collaborate and a desire to tackle the greatest health challenges of our time.

Health Transformer University

Evolving out of StartUp Health Academy, Health Transformer University, established in 2022, is our coaching and educational program. Each week founders have the opportunity to learn from industry experts, trained coaches, and their peers. 

Health Moonshot Communities

At the heart of everything we do at StartUp Health is the goal of turning individual, siloed founders into a thriving, collaborative Health Moonshot Community. That means that we use every opportunity – whether it’s an info session, coaching call, or board meeting – to connect founders to one another in meaningful, contextual ways so that together, as a supportive community, we can achieve health moonshots more quickly. 

Our Collaborators

StartUp Health’s first two funds were supported by organizations like Novartis, Chiesi, Guidewell, Massimo, and Advocate Aurora. Most recently, our T1D and Alzheimer’s Health Moonshot Communities were supported financially by the Helmsley Charitable Trust, Gates Ventures, and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF). Members of our Impact Boards include leading executives from organizations like the American Diabetes Association, the Cleveland Clinic, and GE Ventures.