Grapefruit Health

As one of the most active early stage investors in Chicago and operator of TeamWorking by TechNexus, the largest single coworking space in the city, we at TechNexus Venture Collaborative are actively tracking over 1,000 early stage Chicago ventures across all industries. In our newest series, Reinventing Industry: Mapping the Venture Landscape of Chicago, we’re highlighting the largest and most disruptive categories seeing local venture activity. To start, we examined the Chicago-based innovators in healthtech — which features companies building AI-powered imaging/diagnostic tools, digital health platforms, and novel medical devices, to name a few verticals. These young startups benefit from surrounding infrastructure like medtech accelerators (MATTER, mHUB ), incumbent corporate leaders (AbbVie, Walgreens, Baxter International Inc.), hospital systems (Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Rush University Medical Center, Endeavor Health), cutting edge research universities (Northwestern University, University of Chicago), and leading venture / PE firms (venture: 7wire Ventures, 2Flo Ventures | PE: Shore Capital Partners, Thoma Bravo) focused on the space. Read the full breakdown linked below, and stay tuned for the next overview of the energy / sustainability landscape!

Some highlights and shoutouts from #ConvergeSouth 🌵 Nanbar Health (Elizabeth Hensley and AB Gundala) collecting more accurate, real-time patient data to speed up medical visits and as a way to overcome the many issues patients face sharing objective information with their providers ⛳ Meridian Performance Systems Inc. (Josh Kohn) - improving our putting game and connecting golfers of all skillsets, to professional recommendations, training content and more, right from your phone 🐢 myCharity (Will Hedrick) - ever wonder if your donations to charities actually get to the intended organization? myCharity solves that problem by giving you visibility, sharing consistent field updates and allowing you to get even more insights through their digital platform 🩺 Corstrata (Joseph Ebberwein) - certified wound care nurses are super limited in the US and cannot always consult with the patients who need them most. Corstrata connects these valuable professionals to wound patients through their platform. ⚕️ SiteLabs (Darren Schaupp) - providing diagnostic and preventative testing at independent pharmacies and delivering results in an app. This is helping overcome the huge doctor shortage that is looming and making testing easier to get for nearly any individual 🍊 Grapefruit Health (there was no grapefruit emoji, sorry Eric Alvarez) - there is a ton of healthcare work that needs to get done, but systems can't hire and retain the people necessary to do those tasks. Grapefruit finds quality healthcare students, trains them and executes those tasks for health systems I only mentioned a handful of great Founders and the problems they're solving - there were so many other impressive folks at ConvergeSouth this year. Comment if there are others you want to shout out!

What an adventure! Thank you to HEIC, Flywheel Foundation , Atrium Health , Advocate Health , and Eli Lilly and Company for sponsoring such an impactful program! Grapefruit Health was selected out of 100 startups to participate in a unique program to address health inequities in parts of North Carolina. Over 12 weeks we met with incredible subject matter experts from Atrium Health that helped guide us towards a meaningful contract with the health system. Special thanks to leaders Roy Hawkins Jr., FACHE , Dr. Tiffany Victor DNP, MSN, BA, RN, ACM-RN , Sarah Davis, MBA, RN, BSN, MAMC, CPHQ , and Jennifer Snow . From Flywheel, thank you Peter Marsh , Malobi Achike, Esq. , and the entire team who worked insanely hard to pull this all off. I am proud to call you all friends now.

Grateful for the opportunity to MC the MainStage pitches for winners of Flywheel Foundation’s Health Equity Innovation Challenge at last week’s ConvergeSouth Conference at the Innovation Quarter in Winston-Salem. Proud of our Atrium Health Cabarrus leadership for supporting this innovation challenge, and bravo to these inspiring entrepreneurs for applying their talent and passion to reduce health disparities in such creative ways. To learn more about the Health Innovation Challenge: https://lnkd.in/e44DnQMa Eric Alvarez Jessica Rak Bruno David Miller Cynthia Hayes AKALAKA Peter Marsh Roy Hawkins Jr., FACHE Asha Rodriguez, MBA Matthew Roden, MBA, MHA Benjamin Tingey Jennifer Snow J. Nwando Olayiwola, MD, MPH, FAAFP (she/her) Oby Nwabuzor, MBA Danielle Nabak, RD Emily Wilson Advocate Health

It was incredible to see the community come together at the beautiful Wake Forest Biotech Place in Winston-Salem to support startups across various industries. 🎉 The event featured an exciting lineup, including an innovators' exhibition with over 75 startups, presentations by passionate innovators, curated conversations with experts and investors, and expert-led sessions on funding, AI applications, go-to-market strategies, and many other engaging topics. Congratulations to the cohort of winning startups that presented—I’m excited to see where their innovation takes them next! Grateful for the opportunity to learn and network with so many inspiring leaders and founders. Helping score the participating startups was also an insightful and rewarding experience. Huge thanks to the Flywheel Foundation and all the organizers for such a fantastic event! Peter Marsh Bryan Dennstedt🌱 Ajay Dharod Nathan Powell Greg Brown Dan Roselli Joseph Ebberwein Eric Alvarez Zack Lyon Margaret Kocherga, PhD David Miller Elizabeth Hensley Darren Schaupp #ConvergeSouth #Startups #Innovation #NCCommunity #Entrepreneurship #WinstonSalem #WakeForest

8th edition here!

We are already on our 5th edition of The Peel. Check it out! Please share this with any nursing student in your life. #nursingstudents https://lnkd.in/gfCbxqtb