Calling all commercial-ready health startups

Morgenthaler Ventures has announced the third annual DCtoVC Challenge in partnership with Health 2.0.
Last year’s challenge featured some of the most innovative companies in mobile health. JiffPad won the Series A competition for their mobile app which allows physicians to create detailed tutorials to better explain medical procedures and treatments to their patients, while EyeNetra won the Seed Stage competition with their $2 smartphone attachment for diagnosing refractive error.
This year’s challenge is focused on health IT startups that are ready for their Series A round. This means applicants must have a product to demonstrate, some proof that customers or clients will use it, and are seeking approximately $2-5 million in venture capital.
The areas of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

• Care Transitions/Care Coordination
• Big Data/Healthcare Analytics/Predictive Risk Modeling
• Health Information Exchange/Interoperability and Integration
• Telehealth/Remote Diagnostics/MD Virtual Consult
• Healthcare Transparency Solutions
• Marketplaces for Healthcare Services
• New model of primary care
• Social networking for providers
• EHRs/Clinical Documentation
• Consumer Wellness and Gaming or Social Networking for Patients
• mHealth and mobile app (with a large vision)

The competition will still have two rounds of finalists, a Seed Stage and Series A competition as they did the past two years, but they are only accepting Series A stage companies. Startups will be submitted for the Seed stage competition by the digital health accelerators (Rock Health, Blueprint Health, Healthbox, Startup Health) who have formally partnered with the competition this year.
To qualify the business must meet the following criteria:

• Under 3 years old and have received less than $1 million in funding
• Have a product in the market that is ready for commercialization and beyond a prototype stage
• Have the product in pilot stage with a potential customer or already have paying customers
• Have bootstrapped organically or have previously raised money through a “friends and family” or Angel round
• Have a solid business plan that includes a defined source of revenue and customer audience
• Have a sales pipeline in place or are working to build one
• Have a defined founders team and are looking to make strategic hires once you receive venture funding
• Applications will be evaluated based on the promise of the venture, addressable market size, founding teams, and use of innovative technology and business models.

All five finalists will be paired up with two mentors to help them hone their ideas and presentations before the final event. Mentors will include founder of successful health IT companies as well as VC partners and angel investors. Strategic partners of the DCtoVC challenge include the aforementioned digital health accelerators, as well as Silicon Valley Bank, HealthTech Capital, and Gunderson Dettmer.
Companies can apply here.