Mass. Blue Cross to help health-care startups of people of color

From The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com)

“New England Council member, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, recently announced their Health Equity Business Accelerator program. This program provides financial support and mentors to founders of color who are focused on creating equitable health care.

“Startups in the accelerator receive a $150,000 investment and participate in nine months of programming from Blue Cross, The Capital Network and Healthbox. This program serves to support founders who are people of color, who have historically been excluded from funding and networking opportunities. For example, in 2021 only 0.4 percent of venture capital in Massachusetts went to Black-founded startups. This accelerator is looking to increase this number through recruiting cohorts. The first round included five companies, Bloomer Tech, MedHaul, Quality Interactions, SoHookd and TQIntelligence, respectively. The second round is looking to increase this number accepting up to seven companies from around the U.S.

“‘Each company was assigned an executive mentor who gave them access to demystifying how health plans make decisions and gave them access to our supplier diversity program leads, our marketing and sales leaders and our other business leaders,’ said Courton Brown, the vice president for business development at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

“The New England Council would like to commend Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts for their work to increase equity in health care.

“Read more from the Boston Business Journal.’’