Health IT, Startups

The Iron Yard is getting out of the digital health accelerator business

The Iron Yard digital health accelerator is downgrading to a shared workspace in its Spartanburg, South Carolina homebase after three years, according to the Spartanburg Herald Journal. It will continue to offer courses in programming and coding.

SpartanburgThe Iron Yard digital health accelerator is downgrading to a shared workspace in its Spartanburg, South Carolina headquarters after three years. It could very well signal the closing of other accelerators as the sigital health sector shifts and smaller accelerators re-evaluate their business.

In an interview with the Spartanburg Herald Journal, The Iron Yard Managing Director Marty Bauer said the company would continue to run its coding school and said it had changed the perception of the town as a place where startups could grow:

“The needle of entrepreneurship has moved forward in Spartanburg…The Iron Yard is ranked as one of the top three accelerators in the country. When entrepreneurs are considering where to locate and grow their companies, Spartanburg is now prominent on the list of places.”

The accelerator had supported a couple of classes of startups. In addition to a three-month program and the training it provided, its startups would attend Health 2.0’s annual fall conference and use it as a backdrop for their demo day.

It had also had support from a group of companies inside and outside of healthcare such as JM Smith Corp., a holding company for six pharmaceutical and healthcare businesses, Mayo Clinic, AbbVie (Abbott Labs), Zebra Technologies, and BMW.

Several groups that are accelerators or are typically categorized as such have evolved from their original model since they launched such as StartUp Health Academy, Healthbox, and HealthXL. Rock Health ended its accelerator and has focused on using a fund to seed early stage companies.

Shares0
Shares0