A new partnership between Texas organizations could mean more opportunities for local startups to get plugged into the broader innovation ecosystem.
Two divisions of Chicago-based Health Care Services Corporation are teaming up with Capital Factory to connect emerging technology solutions with members and clients. C1 Innovation Lab, a Dallas-based center to incubate and develop new products, along with a division of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX) will work with the Austin-based accelerator and early-stage investor.
"This collaboration will provide us opportunities to engage with new technologies and entrepreneurs on the cutting edge of health care innovation that can help us guide how we interact with customers at all stages of health," said Summer Wright Collins, BCBSTX associate vice president of design and innovation and C1 Innovation Labs leader, in a statement.
The move sees BCBSTX join Capital Factory’s Innovation Council, which fosters collaboration between startups and industry leaders, as its first health care plan member. It will seek to identify and test solutions developed by Texas health care entrepreneurs and startups that will help serve the BCBSTX community. As part of the collaboration, C1 Innovation Lab will also work with other corporations, government agencies and academic institutions to host roundtables and summits.
Other members of the Capital Factory Innovation Council include companies ranging from AWS and Booz Allen to Microsoft and McKesson.
In November Capital Factory closed the doors to its Dallas hub at The Centrum in Uptown, which housed its coworking space and accelerator program. The organization has its headquarters in Austin and space at The Ion in Houston.
However, Capital Factory’s presence and reach in the local community has not gone away. A number of its leaders are still in the area, and it recently launched its first rolling investment fund, which operates like a SaaS subscription, enabling investors to re-up at a set amount on a regular basis. Capital Factory is looking to make between 10 and 20 investments per quarter from the fund, ranging from $50,000 to $250,000.
Boosted by the pandemic, DFW’s health care and biotech innovation scene has been active. Last year, Taysha Gene Therapies went public after raising more than $100 million. Last week, Southlake company OncoNano pulled in one of the larger rounds of the year with a nearly $50 million Series B. The region was also recently ranked No. 8 on a list of top emerging life sciences markers, according to a report by commercial real estate firm JLL.
“DFW has a diverse enough economy to support it, and there’s no reason why we can’t be the next life sciences cluster in the middle of the country,” Ethan Garner, JLL’s DFW region lead, previously told the Dallas Business Journal.
