Rockstart has announced three new ecosystem partnerships with Briskr, IKONE, and In4Care. Startups joining Rockstart’s Digital Health program will get Briskr’s business support in Health Valley and direct access to IKONE’s patient experts. In4Care will organize a matchmaking event for 400 health organizations in Belgium and Rockstart’s Digital Health alumni.

Struck weeks before the kick-off of this year’s Digital Health accelerator program in February, the new partnerships emphasize the strength of the healthcare innovation ecosystem in Nijmegen.

“Digital health startups need more time to grow than startups in other sectors,” said Akshat Kshetrapal, Digital Health startup program director at Rockstart. “Luckily our partners in Nijmegen decided to start the Briskr program that helps startups to grow faster and make a bigger impact on health and high tech. Together with Briskr’s team of business developers, we’ll work closely together during and after the program to optimize the startups' support.

“Further I am thrilled that we’ll work with the patient experts of IKONE during the program. They have proven to be invaluable to build inclusive products and services. And with the support of In4Care we’ll expand our dealmaking to the Belgium ecosystem.”

Briskr is the newly formed Nijmegen consortium consisting of the key regional partners.Together they offer startup and scale-up support with know-how, growing a business, coaching, networking, and other activities. Briskr focuses on entrepreneurs in the areas health and hi-tech in the bigger Nijmegen region.

“We are looking forward to working together during the program and aim to create a hotspot for digital health startups in Europe,” said John Schalken, business support manager at Briskr. “We strengthen our collaboration within the Nijmegen region to enhance our impact on healthcare.”

IKONE is the leading patient expertise consultancy agency in health. Its mission is to improve the quality of care by leveraging the team’s years of experience in health organizations and innovation. IKONE delivers tools and programs to improve patient experience for its customers.

“It’s great that we’ll intensify our relationship,” said IKONE founder Anne-Miek Vroom. “Our patient innovation model consists of tools that fit every phase of innovation, including start-up.  We’ll organize a Patient Innovation Day during the program so the teams will learn how to work and think ‘patients included’ from the very beginning.”

As a Healthcare Innovation Center, In4care wants to provide solutions to nearly 400 actors from health and care by bringing together ideas, people, and organizations from the respective sectors. In4care helps the organizations prepare for the future and make integral, high-quality and affordable care possible.

“We like to help our health organization members more and more with innovation,” said In4Care director Nico De Fauw. “As our partner the Radboudumc REshape Center already had a strong connection with In4care to stimulate solutions on the intersection of technology and health, they introduced us to Rockstart to jointly accelerate our impact. They don’t only let their almost 30 digital health startups match with our members, but also have the expertise to offer tailor-made acceleration services for our health organizations.”