Early-stage medtech ventures in New England now have an accelerator catered exclusively to them: MagpieX, a Providence-based program that just launched in partnership with the New England Medical Innovation Center (NEMIC).
MagpieX will provide pre-seed capital investment, along with clinical and regulatory expertise through NEMIC's extensive network. Rather than bringing in cohorts of startups, the accelerator is accepting applications on a constantly rolling basis, with the goal of accelerating about 10 companies per year. The program itself is three months long, with the promise of continued support after graduation.
"MagpieX really builds off everything that the New England Medical Innovation Center has been doing, and doing quite well, for the last two and a half years," said Aidan Petrie, a founding member of MagpieX and co-founder and managing partner of NEMIC. "We saw there was this huge knowledge gap in medical device and digital health products. We want to avoid entrepreneurs running aground early on."
As Petrie sees it, NEMIC has built out a strong educational program for medical device entrepreneurs, but founders still lack knowledge surrounding key aspects of building those businesses. They need to understand how FDA regulations work. They need to think about how they might sell or license their technology. Crucially, they also need money.
Participating startups will each receive a $30,000 cash investment and $80,000 in-kind services with a flexible deal structure, per a statement about the accelerator's launch. MagpieX will focus on medical devices as well as digital health products, but Petrie says the program will stay away from pharmaceutical startups, which have a different risk profile. (For interested entrepreneurs, there is an information session on Thursday, Feb. 11.)
While MagpieX hopes to tap into Rhode Island's burgeoning life sciences scene — as well as the digital talent coming out of schools like the Rhode Island School of Design — the accelerator is looking well beyond the Ocean State in its search for young ventures. MagpieX is also targeting the biotech hub of Boston and Cambridge, and eventually, it plans to have an international reach.
"The key factor is that they're able to describe a meaningful clinical value alongside a meaningful business value alongside a nascent enabling technology," Petrie said. "The average company should be able to describe it like that: how we're doing to do it, who cares about it and who's going to pay for it. It's as simple as that."
