Elliot Menschik, who has served as managing partner and led the development of DreamIt Ventures’ health tech accelerator DreamIt Health, along with the expansion of the accelerator program to Baltimore, has stepped down after three years.
In response to emailed questions, Menschik said he left in June because he wanted to move back to the entrepreneur role he once enjoyed.
“I really want to get back to building and operating a company. Running DreamIt Health was too time-consuming for me to figure out what’s next. So I’m taking some time now to explore options from starting another company myself to coming onboard at an early-stage company entering a growth phase.
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“I had the privilege of working with some amazing colleagues at DreamIt, not to mention the entrepreneurs among the dozens of companies we helped achieve their earliest milestones and successes.”
Steve Barsh, an entrepreneur and consultant who, like Menschik, teaches at the Wharton School of Business, has stepped into the role, marking a return to the venture capital firm. His official title, according to his LinkedIn profile, is executive vice president, head of acceleration, managing director of DreamIt Health.
Having previously worked as a managing partner for DreamIt Ventures in 2008-2009, Barsh served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at First Round Capital. He also has the unique perspective of having gone through DreamIt Health’s program as an entrepreneur working with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as part of a relatively new program to help companies identify and nurture commercialization opportunities. Although the 3D printing project he worked on turned out not be well suited for it, the program has continued with the latest accelerator class that announced last week.
Barsh comes from a more technology heavy background. He sold his first software company to MCI was co-founder of MyVacationHome, a real estate acquisition group.
The move comes at a time when health tech accelerators are becoming more diverse both in terms of the kinds of technology they are interested in helping along. They’re also attracting older entrepreneurs leading more mature, and well organized startups. DreamIt Health is one of a handful of health tech accelerators in Philadelphia, along with Digital Health Accelerator at the University City Science Center and the accelerator run by the Canadian Consulate General.
Updated Blueprint Health has had some staff changes in the past year as well, with Jean-Luc Neptune coming on board as executive director of the accelerator to manage the program and Doug Hayes has turned his attention to running Blueprint Health Collective and other activities. Co-founder Brad Weinberg continues to run the accelerator with Neptune.
Although health IT services, apps and clinical decision support used to account for the majority of companies in these accelerators. The convergence between digital health, diagnostic devices and big data have led to much more diverse companies, even medical device companies, becoming more widely accepted.
In an emailed set of responses to questions, Menschik concluded that leading healthtech accelerators, DreamIt included, are trying to be better at two things:
“One, they want to get better at managing the timeline since a three to four month program seems a little short for healthcare and two, picking the most promising startups and avoiding the “spray-and-pray” approach of taking lots of raw, early ideas just to see which few stick. The reality is that in every cohort of companies in a given accelerator, there are huge disparities in performance that emerge in just a few weeks time.”
Some programs are adapting to these challenges by leaving acceleration altogether to move upstream, raise a venture fund, and become seed-stage investors only picking winners after they emerge from another accelerator. Others are taking the approach of no cash invested and no equity taken until much later, again choosing to invest only in those they deem worthy.”
