#24 🍩 What the Health - A New First Dog, Fire Partnerships & Computer Brain Implants Enter Humans
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#24 🍩 What the Health - A New First Dog, Fire Partnerships & Computer Brain Implants Enter Humans
Your fortnightly healthtech TL;DR roundup
Hola amigo,
We got there… despite a wee bit of brain fog. Missed you.
🎉 Thanks to all the legends who entered our competitions for tickets to the Digital Health Festival and congrats to the winners! 🎟
Maggie Woloszyn
Emeli Paulo
Aria MK
Rahul Khanna
Omar Ibrahim
Deena Metz
Ok, I got excited… there were more than 3…
Coming to the Digital Health Festival? Want to catch up with a little WTH crew for coffee next Tuesday? ☕️ Sign up here
There’s rumours I might be on a panel or two…
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Jobs 💼
Want to get your role and company featured in front of >2k health tech & innovation loving legends? Add your job to the board or email emily@whatthehealth.io
Noteworthy 🗞️
So, there was an election and we got a new first dog
Oh, and government. Potential health wins from pre-election promises by the new regime:
A $1bn fund to invest in critical tech
Claims they would establish a $1.5bn Medical Manufacturing Fund (MMF) to turn science into more Aussie jobs
Committed to implementing a 10-year primary healthcare plan ft $750m - including grants to help clinics update systems and a voluntary patient enrolment initiative for records
Not reducing the NDIS and Medicare spending
🤞 Let’s see what happens
Aussie (&NZ) Funding Fun
💰 XT Ventures, a new VC focused on sport, fitness, wellness and health officially said hello to the world ft $5m backing from health fund HCF
🤑 Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin gifted UNSW $5.3m in cryptocurrency to support the development of a pandemic early detection tool - Hell yeah
🌹Former Bachelor star Sam Wood sold his fitness app ‘28 by Sam Wood’ for $71m to Melbourne tech company myDNA
🧑⚕️OncoRes Medical scored $12.5m to support the development of its real-time, tumour-assessment tool for surgeons
🫄Fertility providers are hot property with Liverpool Partners making a $202m bid to acquire Aus’s third-biggest IVF provider, Genea
🩻 Aurabox raised $500k from Angels to change how doctors and patients share medical imaging
🚺 Age Up Health (aged care) was awarded funding from the Alice Anderson Fund
🇺🇸NZ’s HealthNow acquired CoverUS entering the US and accelerating its mission of getting everyone access to the care they need
🪴 Rosemary Health raised again ft. Artesian
🧊 NZ’s Icehouse Ventures is raising $20m to back female founders
Worth Knowing
🩸Franklin.ai launched this week - a harrison.ai joint venture with Sonic Healthcare with the mission to put AI in the hands of pathologists globally
🦠 Microba partnered with Midnight Health to deliver personalised health services - including personalised supplements based on people’s microbiome test results
🌱 NIB ups their game leading the way for health insurers, offering Wellteq’s digital health solutions to members through new “GreenPass” ft. other exclusive health & wellness offers
💻 Bupa is working with HealthShare to help its customers better navigate the healthcare system
🧠 The First Commercial Brain-Computer Interface Is Entering Human Trials… And it hails from down under
Synchron officially overtakes Elon’s Nuralink with the first US patient clinical trial of our Stentrode Brain Computer Interface for severe paralysis. Expanding to global trials soon
Whilst they are doing INSANE things, we need to ask the question why they didn't and couldn’t stay in Aus…
Perhaps it’s time to make a more hospitable environment for true innovation?
🤝 Six tech companies partnered forming the Aged Care Technology Consortium to take on aged care services ft. Webstercare, Extensia, Foxo, Visionflex, MEDrefer and Humanetix
💡 The Australian Clinical Entrepreneur Program (CEP), a new program for clinicians to upskill and develop innovative ideas was announced ft. endless partners
☀️ LuminaX launched their latest cohort of 11 early health tech companies
♿️ Remarkable also introduced its new crew of 8 startups making accessibility better
🧬 A Sydney researcher found a low level of the enzyme Butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) in babies may be a potential indicator for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
💥 Oh look… another article saying without radical reform, the prognosis for our health system is grim
🧮 QLD researchers hope to develop a blood test to predict whether people will develop severe COVID-19, combining traditional genetic research with AI
US & Beyond the Borders
❌ Femtech has had a tough run with the big tech overlords of late
Emjoy, a sexual wellness app for women - was the latest to be suddenly blocked by Google due to "policy violation of sexual content” despite being live for yonks. The same day Apple featured it as App of the Day… ok 👌😕
🥛 Israel’s Remilk is opening the ‘world’s largest’ facility for cow-free milk in Denmark ft. Aussie investors Paradigm shift buying into their $120m series B
💤 England is set to prescribe insomniacs app treatment instead of sleeping pills with Sleepio showing to be more effective than sleep hygiene and pills
📱 Meta (ie Facebook) invested in a Mental Health Startup’s $3m seed round, becoming its first Asian investment
Theranos might have failed but people still have faith…
🤰 Mirvie Raises $60 Million For Blood Test To Predict Pregnancy Complications
⚡️The future of fuelling medical implants might be tiny fuel cells converting blood sugar into electricity
🔨 AI is biased AF… but Google unveiled 2 new tools designed to fight skin colour bias
🍄 London’s Clerkenwell Health is set to open Europe’s first psychedelic drug trial firm in hopes to make UK a world leader in psychedelics research
🫀Vivalink introduced its tiny multi-vital blood pressure patch for remote patient monitoring which is now available for commercial R&D.
The patch uses electrical signal-based tech to capture ECG trace, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure on a single device
Startup Stuff 🚀
Ambitious founder ready to take your startup to the next level?
Startmate’s Accelerator is taking apps to help and propel ambitious founders towards their goals ft. funding, mentors and a killer program
Big Ambitions? Want to work with the best in the world?
Hypers program for Seed- Series A startups, invests US$300k and pairs you with top unicorn founders to get sh*t done over 4 weeks ft. investors like a16z & Sequoia
Early-stage startup seeking funding and support?
Skalata has revamped its program and now takes applications on a rolling basis, investing $100-200k ft. tailored support and potential follow-on funding
Female founder looking for a funding boost?
Round 3 of the Boosting Female Founders Grant is open ft. support and grants of $100k- and $400k for majority female-owned and led startups - More here
Looking for funds and help with research or R&D?
Innovation Connections (IC) is a program for entrepreneurs by the CSIRO to help them advance their R&D activities and access matched funding - More here
Digital Health Startup keen to head to the UK?
ANDHealth is taking a delegation over in June - More here
Leading tech innovator and want some recognition and a helping hand?
The second annual KPMG Private Enterprise Tech Innovator competition will recognise Australia's leading tech innovators and future tech titans - More here
Want to launch into Singapore and snag some funding?
Singapore’sWeek of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH 2022) is holding their deep-tech pitch comp with >S$1.2m in prizes up for grabs - More here
Considering launch into India?
The Big Leap Incubator by Arrow Digital Marketing & La Trobe University can shortcut your entry to market, including a facilitated trip to India
Events💥
Tues 31st May: ANDHealth - Digital Health Showcase (Virtual)
Tues 31st May: Startup Victoria - Pitch Night: Wellbeing (Melbourne)
31st May - 1st June: Digital Health Festival (Melbourne)
Wed 1st June: MMA: A New Era of Experiential Medicine: Exploring the Interface of Technology, Neuroscience and Psychedelics (Virtual)
Wed 15th June: MMA: Psychedelic Renaissance? Update on Research and Progress Around the World
Thur 16th June: 2022 TRAM Track Presentation Day (Melbourne)
Fri 17th June: Telstra: Hack for Digital Healthcare (Virtual)
Thur 23rd June: Venturer Workshop - How To Accelerate Product Commercialisation & Leverage Funding (Virtual)
Fri 24th June: MedTechVic futuremap workshop – Bosch Australia Manufacturing Solutions
Cool Content 💎
Random stuff worth consuming
🔈 Healthcare is Hard #41: A Podcast for Insiders - Google Cloud’s Aashima Gupta on Big Tech’s Platform Play in Healthcare
🩺 Cool piece in the Harvard Business Review on How Algorithms Could Improve Primary Care
🔮 Mark Cuban predicts AI will dominate the future workplace: To be successful, ‘you’re going to have to understand it’
🚺 Without women at the top - we screwed is more or less the sentiment of Robyn Denholm, chairman of electric car manufacturer Tesla and why we need more women in STEM leadership positions
🦄 Apparently, this is the complete list of 92 global healthtech unicorns
Epic Opps ✨
Got an Angel Syndicate in Vic? Want some funding to grow?
LaunchVic has grants of $300k up for grabs to get more angels investing in early-stage startups. More here
Keen to run a world-class accelerator?
Grants of up to $2m are now available to experienced accelerator program providers over the next three years in Victoria - Info here
Know a Brilliant Woman in Digital Health? Nominate her for an award!
Telstra is hosting their awards again to recognise and celebrate women in digital health for their achievements in health and aged care - Nominate here
Want to present at the Digital Health Institute Summit Sydney event?
Pitch your success stories, your research and case studies here
MTPConnect’s REDI Fellowship program is taking more applications for grants of up to $250k for industry fellows
Enabling orgs to secure researchers, academics, clinicians or tech professionals in medical, biotech and pharma sector to come work on cool stuff - More here
Keen to learn about AI in healthcare but haven’t had the time?
IntelliHQ launched some new short courses for those in healthcare who want to learn about what AI can do for healthcare - More here
Know someone doing cool things in Health Tech?
Nominate them for The InnovationAus Awards!
The Digital Health & Health Tech category is open to digital health platforms devices, diagnostics and therapeutics, biotech innovations - More here
In case anyone was wondering just how early we were in this “health” thing…
Cheers to @superzac from Mobius for this epic one
Have I missed something? Just want to say hi?
Didn’t hate it? Know someone else who should maybe check this out?
Over and out
👋 Emily