Hong Kong’s Nest partners with AIA to launch healthcare tech startup accelerator

Early stage healthcare companies looking for some guidance will now have another resource at their disposal – provided they make the cut. Nest, the Hong Kong-based seed investment firm, has partnered with insurance company AIA to launch a 12-week accelerator program for startups specializing in health and wearable technology.

Upon acceptance, eight teams vetted by Nest and AIA will gain access to workspace in Hong Kong Science and Technology Park and Nest’s HQ, along with tech support from accelerator sponsors Microsoft and Amazon. They’ll also get increased access to Nest’s network of investors and AIA’s network of healthcare companies.

“Not only can AIA help these startups get access to new clients and great minds inside AIA, they can connect them to partners, strategic investors, and potential acquirers. It’s not just bringing one guy in the room, it’s bringing an entire organization,” Nest founder Simon Squibb tells Tech in Asia. 

While neither Nest nor AIA guarantee equity investments in participating teams, Squibb remains optimistic that graduates of the accelerator won’t have trouble obtaining funding after the program’s completion.

Throughout its four years in Hong Kong, Nest has always operated as an organization with some parallels to traditional startup accelerators. In addition to providing seed funding for dozens of local teams, it invites startups to participate in regular demo days, and helps its more engineering-minded portfolio companies with marketing. Earlier this year it also launched Investable.vc, a closed-group crowd-investing site that connects angel investors with startups looking for cash. Squibb says that it made sense to create a fresh, standalone accelerator with AIA because of its deep expertise in a specific industry.

“We do have a form of acceleration in all of our investments,” he says. “But I like doing accelerator programs where the knowledge in one particular sector is very very deep. So if we’re going to do a [traditional accelerator], I could have one guy who’s involved in health care. But I don’t want to have a shallow talent pool helping these startups.”

Startups interested in joining Nest and AIA’s accelerator can submit their applications before February 1, 2015. The program will begin the following March.