(Comunicato Stampa) – The first Nordic healthtech and wellness startup accelerator Vertical starts its inaugural program on Monday August 24th in Espoo, Finland.
The four month program hosts eleven startups from around Europe. The startups offer solutions ranging from nutrition service to fitness tracking and cardio health monitoring.
Vertical offers the teams an environment to develop and grow their business. Together with selected partners, the accelerator offers the teams a state-of-art co-working space, a training program which focuses on going from minimum viable product to minimum meaningful product, organizing of financing, legal assistance, and connections within marketing and international product distribution.
At the end of the program Vertical will invest up to 150 000 euros to the most promising teams. The acceleration program climaxes with an investor and client event held in November.
Finland is internationally appealing location for the health and wellness scene, and it’s the place to be for ambitious startups. Vertical accelerator program got over 140 applications from startup companies from 23 countries around the world.
«We are amazed about the international interest towards us and also about the high quality of teams competing for a seat in our accelerator. This clearly testifies that Finland is evolving as a center of gravity for development of next generation health solutions», says Mr. Sébastien Gianelli, Head of Portfolio of Vertical accelerator.
One of Vertical’s partners in the program is the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa Region HUS. «Digitalization, health technology, and new service concepts made possible by them offer huge opportunities for healthcare industry, vascular surgeon and consultant MD, PhD Karoliina Halmesmäki from HUS says. «Digital innovations make it easier and faster for patients to access healthcare, and guide patients to the correct treatment track».
Other Vertical partners are global companies Samsung and Sonera, logistics company Ingram Micro, law-firm JB Eversheds, University of Helsinki, University of Jyväskylä, and the cities of Espoo and Helsinki.
The broad partner network shows that healthtech and wellness business is not anymore only in the interests of the narrow pharmaceutical industry, but that it appeals to a wide range of companies.
