New Health-Focused Startup Accelerator Rock Health Debuts Inaugural Batch

If the numbers shared by Gigaom in this infographic are any indication, Venture funding has stormed back to where it was before the financial collapse in 2008. The amount of capital invested is on the rise, and the current climate is providing an excellent opportunity for startups looking to raise money. GRP Partner Mark Suster confirmed as much at his talk at the Founder Institute this week, in which he urged startups to raise in the current “frothy market” — especially ahead of a potential bubble burst.

Though the market is indeed frothy: Venture funding in the Web grew by over $1 billion from the first quarter last year, of all the digital areas in which startups are raising the most money, health and medical-related investment is on the low end — receiving only 3 percent of venture funding over the last year. (Compared to social commerce which led at 22 percent and advertising, sales, and marketing, which came in at 14 percent.)

A new seed accelerator that launched earlier this year called Rock Health, is hoping to break that trend in favor of health-related mobile and web startups. Though health care only continues to advance thanks to technology, human health remains on the decline and related health costs are increasing. In fact, Americans spent $2.4 trillion on health care in 2008, despite having lower patient outcomes than comparable nations.

Thus, Rock Health has designed a program, not unlike Y Combinator, Tech Stars, and those before it, that accepts applications from startups during a month-long period, before undergoing evaluation by a panel of health experts and investors. The panel than selects 10 startups to enter into a five-month program that includes a $20K grant, office space in San Francisco, medical, branding, communications, and legal support — as well as mentoring and workshops given by experts in the industry.