St. Elizabeth Healthcare and Northern Kentucky University are teaming up to launch a startup accelerator to foster young companies that can address some of the region's biggest health needs.
SoCap Accelerate is accepting applications for its first cohort of five health care-related startups to participate in its intensive five-week program aimed at boosting young companies that addressing critical health care needs. The program, based in downtown Covington, starts in October.
SoCap is led by Executive Director Rico Grant, founder of CrownMob, a startup marketplace for Black haircare, and a longtime mentor of startups in the region.
"The overall goal of our program is to sell our region: talking to companies and getting them to locate here, open an office here or hire in our region," Grant told me.
Grant said he was approached by St. Elizabeth Healthcare and NKU in November 2019 as part of an effort to identify and train up companies that can help address critical areas like:
- Cancer
- Substance abuse
- Mental health
- Patient experience
- Heart disease
While those areas were initially the focus, SoCap is also accepting companies that seek to address the global coronavirus pandemic.
The five-week program is designed to rapidly and intensively get the companies training on areas like fundraising, legal and accounting business needs, digital and traditional marketing and customer acquisition.
SoCap is partnering with the law firm of Frost Brown Todd, crowdfunding platform Wunderfund, creative development firm Canned Spinach and accounting firm Rudler PSC to aid participants. It also has a group of 20 mentors and subject matter experts to help the companies that go through its program.
SoCap was designed not so much as the anti-accelerator, but as an alternative to the traditional four- or five-month startup accelerators. Grant said those can be daunting for founders and often require them to pick up their lives and relocate for the duration.
SoCap is designed to rapidly skill up the companies that go through it, and unlike traditional accelerators, it doesn't take an equity stake in the companies it shepherds.
"Our No. 1 goal is to sell the region," Grant said. "We're not looking to invest in companies, we're looking to grow companies in the region."
The first cohort will begin in mid-October and graduate just prior to Thanksgiving this year. Grant hopes to run two to three cohorts through the accelerator each year. He said he's received 15 applications already in the first week they've been open. The first year will be a hybrid model due to the coronavirus pandemic, with 80% taking place virtually and 20% in-person.
SoCap has assembled a seven-member advisory board with some of the biggest names in startups and innovation:
- Valerie Hardcastle, executive director of the Institute for Health Innovation at Northern Kentucky University
- Pete Blackshaw, CEO of Cintrifuse
- Matt Hollenkamp, vice president of marketing and communications for St. Elizabeth Healthcare and former brand director at Procter & Gamble
- Susan Olson, chief operating officer of EdjAnalytics
- Emily Geiger, CEO and founder of venture studio Vitamin Collective
- Paul Ehlinger, venture capitalist at Allos Ventures
- Doug Ladd, president of Ladd Research Group and executive entrepreneur in residence at NKU
