Washington, D.C., (October 25, 2022) – Village Capital, announced the peer-selected winners of its Innovations In Health Equity Accelerator: SpeechMED, Scripted, Strong Children Wellness, and Grapefruit Health. The accelerator, which was supported by Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures, an investment fund within the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, was developed to help cultivate early-stage startups reducing health disparities for people of color in the US. The four winners were awarded equity-free investment to help them strengthen their business platforms.
Innovations in Health Equity was run with additional support from the California Health Care Foundation’s Innovation Fund and supported 10 US-based companies. The participant cohort was composed of 70% of startups that are headquartered outside of US tech hubs (NY, CA, MA) and 80% that are led by a BIPOC founder and/or CEO.
The 10 participant startups evaluated each other through an investor lens, using eight specific investment criteria that leverage Village Capital’s venture investment levels. Four startups were ranked “most investment ready” to receive USD$50,000 each in grant funding and focus on the following:
Grapefruit Health (Chicago, IL) addresses the massive workforce shortage in healthcare by creating a net-positive, semi-clinical workforce composed of clinical students to perform interactions with patients remotely.
Scripted (Chicago, IL) is the first marketplace that connects patients in need of non-urgent care for common conditions with an in-person local pharmacy provider.
SpeechMED (Miami, FL) offers an award-winning voice and language platform designed and built for immigrant households, the elderly, and socioeconomically vulnerable populations to track, understand, and monitor their health.
Strong Children Wellness (Queens, NY) is a healthcare network for marginalized communities that embeds comprehensive medical care into trusted community organizations to deliver technology-enabled primary care, mental health, and social care to children and families with medical, behavioral, and social complexity.
For more information, reach out to Sofía Cándano at Village Capital (sofia.candano@vilcap.com).
About Village Capital
Village Capital helps entrepreneurs bring big ideas from vision to scale. Our mission is to reinvent the system to back the entrepreneurs of the future. Our vision is a future where business creates equity and long-term prosperity. Since 2009, we have supported more than 1,400 early-stage entrepreneurs through our investment readiness programs. Our affiliated fund, VilCap Investments, has invested in more than 110 program graduates.