“Healthcare will be among the industries in which digitalization will have the largest impact”, Kenneth Salonius, co-founder of Vertical accelerator says.
Over the past years the team behind Vertical accelerator has been actively working with startups in the health and wellness sector, having founded a large health startup ecosystem organization with a goal to network the industry and make it easier for entrepreneurs to succeed in their ventures. Through this work they noticed a clear upward trend in the amount of health focused startups utilizing digital solutions to improve health and wellness, and decided to set up a startup accelerator supporting the most promising digital health startups in their market entry.
Vertical is the first Nordic startup accelerator focused only at health and wellness. The program takes place in Helsinki region, Finland. Over the course of the four-month program, selected entrepreneurs move to Helsinki region to the Vertical co-working space together with 10 to 15 fellow startups from all over Europe, to work together with the Vertical team, mentors and partner companies to validate their products and find distribution partners for global growth.
“Our mentor and partner networks are among the most important things we offer to our startup companies. In addition, we may also invest in some of the most promising companies after the end of the program”, Salonius says. Vertical has large industry leading partner companies like Samsung and TeliaSonera, who offer the selected startups direct access to industry insight, cutting edge technology and global market outreach.
“The whole healthcare industry is changing with digitalization”, Salonius says. That is why Vertical focuses on digital health, wellness, and healthtech. Startups are agile and find new solutions to problems fast. “Startups make products that people really love, but they have more challenges with go-to-market”, Salonius says. “Big companies are looking for fresh and novel ideas that startups have, and they can provide funding and infrastructure that startups don’t have. This is why Vertical exists, we bring startups and big companies together.”
Vertical ran its first accelerator program this fall. “Our first startup batch really showed that we are working on the right issue”, Salonius says. “Our next program starts in March and we can’t wait to start working with the next batch of startups companies that build the future of healthcare. We have seen many interesting startups coming from Sweden, and hope to see some Swedish teams in our spring batch.”
Kenneth Salonius will be visiting the Stockholm Science City Foundation breakfast seminar on January 19th, 2016 to talk more about how small startups can join forces with large corporates to get to market faster. See more info here >>
Applications for the next Vertical accelerator program are open until February 1st, 2016. Read more about the startups that took part in the fall program 2015 and apply to the SPRING2016 program of Vertical.
