Accelerator programs aim to close that gap. Long a FinTech staple, they pair young firms with advisers and industry veterans so founders can sidestep early missteps.
Case in point: On June 2, SemperVirens Venture Capital rolled out an accelerator built for B2B FinTechs, workforce tech and healthcare that serve the healthcare, wealth-management and workplace sectors. The goal: fast-track revenue by moving startups straight into deal discussions with would-be customers.
The program leans on SemperVirens’ existing network of benefits brokers, health plans and large employers. Robby Peters, the firm’s co-founder and managing partner, told Karen Webster recently in an exclusive interview that the idea is to connect founders not just with advisers but with payers ready to buy.
Tapping the Ecosystem
The eight-week curriculum brings seed-to-Series A companies into one-on-one talks with potential healthcare partners. Employers today spend roughly 75 cents of every payroll dollar on attracting and keeping talent, and health benefits loom large in that cost. Real-time product feedback, Peters said, helps the FinTechs sharpen tools meant to improve employer–employee healthcare relationships.
“The employee is often the end user of healthcare. You’ve got an employer that’s paying for it and paying a lot of money for those programs,” he said. Consultants or brokers curate options, employers settle on a carrier, and workers enroll through platforms such as ADP or Workday. “What we’ve tried to do is amass that whole ecosystem.”
That network — SemperVirens calls it the SemperSystem — already counts 200 participants. Peters says they can “help companies get their first five deals off the ground and understand how to sell to their first couple of customers, all the way up to closing their first $200 million of revenues.”
Founders value access to elusive decision makers. “Entrepreneurs want to work with us because the folks that we’re bringing in to give advice are hard to get in touch with,” Peters noted. Those advisers include current and former chief technology, human-resource, information-security, finance and marketing officers at employers, carriers and platforms such as ADP, Anthem, Cigna, Paylocity, Paychex and Disney.
The startups, for their part, often wield artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help healthcare companies recruit, train and retain employees more efficiently. Before the accelerator’s formal launch, Peters said, SemperVirens’ network had already facilitated more than 4,000 customer contracts.
Interest has been brisk: More than 70 companies applied, and four have entered the first cohort. Twenty chief human-resource officers will speak with those firms, followed by an advisory panel of 25 sector specialists. Afterward, corporate partners will help refine business models.
SemperVirens typically writes $1 million to $5 million checks. Between formal rounds, it can deploy $50,000 to $250,000 — part cash, part adviser equity — and expects to invest in 30% to 50% of accelerator graduates. “We can work with the company when they’re not out raising and start to showcase them to the ecosystem,” Peters said.
The AI Tailwind
The launch coincides with a surge in AI experimentation across healthcare. Large employers and human capital management (HCM) platforms have tested machine learning, run into roadblocks and grown more open to outside vendors.
“Based on the team, the structure and the capabilities that we are putting into this program,” Peters said, “we’re going to have data that will be valuable for everybody … and create best-in-class products for all of the folks that are involved.”
As Webster observed, “Everyone wants to implement new innovation, but not everyone is ready for a variety of different reasons.” The new accelerator is betting that a ready-made ecosystem — and a push toward revenue, not just advice — will shorten that readiness curve.
