BioSpectrum India Magazine November issue BioSpectrum India Magazine | Page 19

www.biospectrumindia.com
|
November 2017
|
BioSpectrum
l START-UP NEWS
Berkley collaborates
with IKP Eden to
start medtech
Accelerator
myUpchar raises seed funding
Medical
content
startup
myUpchar has raised Rs 2 crore
($300,000) in seed funding from
a clutch of investors through
online deal-making platform
LetsVenture.
The
investors
were Rajan Anandan, managing
director at Google India; Alok
Mittal, co-founder and chief
executive of lending startup Indifi;
Mohit Satyanand, founder of ed-
tech venture Teamwork Arts; and
Currae Healthtech Fund, which
was founded by Apoorva Patni,
son of Patni Computer Systems
co-founder Ashok Patni.
myUpchar, which provides
health-related
content
in
Hindi currently, plans to use
the capital to add content in
5-6 other regional languages.
The company was founded by
Stanford University alumni Rajat
Garg and Manuj Garg. Rajat is
a serial entrepreneur, having
founded e-commerce startup
Shimply and media marketing
firm SocialAppsHQ. Manuj had
previously worked with Boston
Consulting Group and also
founded ad startup Scribble
Design.
Several
content-based
startups have come up in the
recent past, targeting different
aspects of health and wellness.
Most of them employ a content-
first strategy to drive traffic
onto their platform, and look to
monetise through advertisements
and sale of related products and
services.
A medtech accelerator has
been launched in Bengaluru as
result of a partnership between
UCLA Berkeley and the startup
incubator and makerspace
IKP Eden. The accelerator
programme will be open to 15
Seed-funded startups per batch.
Participants will be offered
assistance in scaling their
products and technologies as
well as raising Series A funding.
Manav Subodh, a senior fellow
at the University of California,
Berkeley is heading the newly-
launched medtech accelerator.
The startups have been narrowed
down across a wide range of
applications a wearable device for
monitoring high risk pregnancy
to a chip medical device for early
detection of cancer. Uptill now,
the accelerator by UCLA and IKP
Eden has received nearly 250
applicants, out of which around
11 startups have been shortlisted.
The programme’s objective is to
identify emerging startups that
are working to alleviate medical
problems and