A new accelerator is set to kick off in Birmingham.
Prosper, a coalition of community, civic and business leaders committed to creating a more vibrant and racially inclusive economy, is set to launch its Prosper HealthTech Accelerator. Leaders plan for the accelerator to connect cutting-edge health technology startups to the coaching, capital and networking they need to build and grow their businesses.
The Prosper HealthTech Accelerator is launching in partnership with Gener8tor, a nationally ranked startup accelerator company. The accelerator will invest in startups selected for the program through a fund managed by Redhawk Advisory. The accelerator will run for 12 weeks twice a year. The goal is that at least two to three companies out of each cohort will remain in Birmingham.
Douglas Watson, an employee of Gener8tor, will serve as managing director of the health tech accelerator. The accelerator will start with a kick-off event on Feb 23, with the program starting on Feb. 28. The accelerator sent out invitations to eight companies, and six have been accepted into the program so far, with the participants coming from different areas around the country. The original target was to have five participating companies, Watson said.
“This (accelerator) allows us to grow the momentum, and the really exciting thing about these companies (is that they) are coming to Birmingham,” Watson said. “It’s a way to … recruit the earliest stages to help grow this ecosystem.”
With Birmingham’s robust health care scene and growing tech scene, Watson said that the program is already leveraging those connections. He wants these companies to work within the local ecosystem and establish roots in the market.
“I see this as an opportunity for the startup ecosystem to show what Birmingham has to offer and use that for recruiting (these companies) and their employees to stay here,” he said.
Birmingham has recently gathered more accelerator programs, including Techstars, the Velocity Accelerator and the Bronze Valley Accelerator, but Watson sees the Prosper HealthTech Accelerator playing more into the strengths of Birmingham’s health care economy, whereas other accelerators focus on more general topics or different industries altogether.
For now, Watson said that Gener8tor and Prosper will remain focused on building and growing the health tech accelerator and will not branch out into other specific industries for accelerators at the moment.
Ultimately, all parties involved are excited about the new accelerator and see this as a continued step in the right direction for Birmingham’s tech scene.
“I think the companies that are coming through are excited, everyone from the Prosper side, the Redhawk Advisor side, and the Gener8tor side are all excited,” he said. “We see this as an opportunity for Birmingham to continue to take steps in the right direction, to grow the tech ecosystem and to grow...bigger than with what we have now.”
