Healthcare City – A Quality Startups Incubator in the Healthcare and Wellness Industry

Healthcare and wellness are currently among the most popular fields in the world of online startups.

They are of interest to virtually 100% of the web population, and there is certainly a lot of potential in this industry.

But it is also an extremely competitive business in which only the best can succeed. Without the right background and structure, it is often very difficult to become successful.

Fortunately, however, there is a solution for emerging startups in this field and during Web Summit 2016 in Lisbon, I had the opportunity to interview Nuno Carvalho, the CEO of Healthcare City, a incubator for startups in the healthcare and wellness industry:

Nuno Carvalho – CEO at The Healthcare City

How was the idea of Healthcare City born?

Healthcare City is a startups incubator for the health and wellness industry, and our main goal is to help our startups launch their products or services on the global market. For this, the startups can count on the support of our multidisciplinary operational team, with people with backgrounds ranging from business to medicine and biology, our network of mentors and especially our founders. And this is where we differentiate ourselves from other incubators: We are not only the first incubator in Portugal to specialise in healthcare and well-being – we also have the industry with us. Healthcare City was born out of a partnership between Nova Medical School of the New University of Lisbon, Janssen Cilag of the Johnson & Johnson group of families, Médis of the Ocidental group and Lusíadas of the AMIL and United Health groups. Our main goal was to overcome one of the biggest difficulties startups face, which is accessing the market. By having the industry within our incubator, we are able to help startups test the market closely and sell their products through our founders’ own sales structure.

Who are your target users?

We are not just looking for startups but also well-established companies and entrepreneurs with innovative ideas.

How long have you been in the market?

Actually, we are also a startup and a very young one! Our project was launched in April 2016, and by the end of this year we will be working with approximately 12 startups. During the seven months of our existence, we have received over 150 applications from 11 different countries. Healthcare City is growing at a good pace, with numbers above what we were expecting for our first year of life.

What was the main reason of your presence at Web Summit 2016: looking for original startups, visibility or possibly something else? Were you satisfied with the event?

We wanted to be at the Web Summit not only to get to know hundreds of startups and potential partners, but also to enjoy what is the biggest tech event in Europe. By living the Web Summit experience, we not only had tons of ideas for our events and activities but also got a lot of people to know us, assisted amazing conferences and established very interesting partnerships with international stakeholders. All of these experiences will be converted into knowledge for our team and opportunities for our entrepreneurs.

What are the business conditions, especially conditions for startups, in your country like? Can you rely on any support from your government?

The Portuguese government has been very active when it comes to entrepreneurship and promoting the creation of new businesses in Portugal. One good example is the several funding programs backed by European structural funds (Portugal2020) that cover basic startup activities such as incubation costs, internationalization and so on.

What is the main marketing strategy you use to promote your services?

We advertise Healthcare City and our events mainly through social networks (Facebook and LinkedIn) and platforms such as F6S, Gust and Fundacity, which are application platforms for acceleration/incubation programs and search/management of early-stage investments. Our presence at events such as the Web Summit and our partnerships with other entities of the national and international startup ecosystem also help us to spread the Healthcare City name. In addition, for 2017 we are planning a few roadshows in European countries.

There is some interesting news on your website:  25 vacancies open for Kick Off!, would you like to tell us something more about this?

Pre-incubation is actually like a co-working space, but the difference is that what we are actually offering is the possibility of working in a very rich environment. All of our startups will be health or well-being related, so they will all have something in common, and this is a highly beneficial factor for promoting partnerships and growth.

We wish you and Healthcare city the best of luck in all your future endeavours.