In 2017, Alicia Chong Rodriguez co-founded Bloomer Tech, a Cambridge-based company using fabrics technology and machine learning to solve cardiovascular health problems and build a data set on women’s health.
To scale her business, she joined the recently announced pilot cohort of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts’ Health Equity Business Accelerator. The program provides financial support and mentorship to founders of color focused on creating equitable health care services and solutions.
“You don’t think about a private insurance company caring that much about the disparities in health care, but they do. And they’re very intent,” Chong Rodriguez said.
Startups in the accelerator receive a $150,000 investment and participate in nine months of programming from Blue Cross, The Capital Network and Healthbox. The startups also participate in two pitch days. The four other startups in the pilot program include MedHaul, Quality Interactions, SoHookd and TQIntelligence.
Michele Courton Brown, the vice president of business development at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, said they wanted to establish this program to support BIPOC founders who have historically been excluded from funding and networking opportunities. In 2021, only 0.4% of venture capital in Massachusetts went to Black-founded startups.
“Each company was assigned an executive mentor who gave them access to demystifying how health plans make decisions and gave them access to our supplier diversity program leads, our marketing and sales leaders and our other business leaders,” Courton Brown said.
The accelerator will begin recruiting its second cohort in July. Courton Brown said they will accept up to seven companies from around the U.S.
“Our hope is that these companies will be able to offer their products and services to a broader audience, broader than Blue Cross Blue Shield,” Courton Brown said. “And more important than anything, just bring their voices to the table.”
Chong Rodriguez has already participated in MassChallenge, MIT’s delta v and Project Entrepreneur. But after learning more about Blue Cross’ accelerator, she realized its resources and network would help scale her team’s technology.
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Bloomer Tech is developing washable, flexible circuits that can be embedded into fabrics, such as a bra. The technology can track elements of cardiovascular disease, such as electrocardiograms, pulse rates, respiratory rates and heart rhythms.
“We’re using it to bring the field of women’s health into the 21st century,” Chong Rodriguez said.
She also referenced a 2022 report from the FDA, which cited a need to further medical device research in women, especially in cardiovascular areas. The majority of testing is done on men, the FDA said, despite diseases presenting differently in men and women.
Chong Rodriguez said she went into the program wanting to learn about opportunities to deploy their product. Through her mentors in the accelerator, she learned more about how the health care system works with vendors and how to become one.
Bloomer Tech has scaled up its manufacturing, Chong Rodriguez said, and is now looking for partners to help deploy its products. While the accelerator gave them connections and the company has some partners in its pipeline, Chong Rodriguez said they’re still looking to meet with companies interested in transforming women’s health.
