AARP recently partnered up with Rock Health – investing in its second organization focused on nurturing early stage healthcare startups.
“It’s all a part of our larger industry-influence strategy” and social mission, said Jeff Makowka, director of thought leadership at AARP.
It’s fascinating to watch the relationships build with groups like Rock, StartUp Health, Healthbox and so on. Those organizations keep evolving and remain fiercely competitive with one another. Meanwhile, the industry both wonders whether these approaches will pan out yet finds enough value to plunk money down cash for a constantly growing list of accelerators/incubators/seed funds.
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Makowka wouldn’t say how much the multiyear partnership cost, though he said the group is not an investor in Rock’s seed fund. AARP has similar sponsorships with New York’s StartUp Health and the Washington, D.C., group 1776 (though the latter partnership goes beyond healthcare).
The Rock Health deal stuck me as a bit of slap to StartUp Health. Makowka as of earlier this week hadn’t discussed the move with StartUp Health. And, after all, why not double down with an accelerator you’re already with?
But Makowka disagreed. Rock gives AARP a better presence on the West Coast and it engages companies that are often at an earlier stage than StartUp Health’s companies, he said.
Also, Makowka said it wanted to push Rock Health to keep embracing health startups that had a business-to-consumer business model. AARP had heard Rock leaders say they would focus more on B2B companies, Makowka said.
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“This is a chance to exert a little influence on our point of view,” he added.
Rock Health Marketing Manager Mollie McDowell stated in e-mail that Rock has always had a mix of B2B and B2C startups – about 30 percent of its portfolio companies are “purely B2C” and they “are not shifting focus to B2B.”
“The 50+ market is huge (and growing) and we were thrilled to formalize a relationship with AARP to better represent that population in digital health innovation,” she wrote.
