Microsoft is looking to support a series of medical and health startups that have a major software component in their product, but it will be a 'technology agnostic' accelerator programme.  

The IT giant has partnered with med tech firm Becton Dickinson (BD) on the multinational Microsoft Ventures Accelerator programme for startups focused on advancements in the healthcare industry.  

Hanan Lavy, director of Microsoft Ventures, said: “Tech startups have the potential to create breakthroughs in almost every industry, including healthcare.  

“Startups accepted into the programme will gain critical industry insight to build companies with the potential to have an enormous impact on our lives.”  

The four-month initiative is open to startups with 2 to 6 full time employees that have anywhere from no funding to up to $700,000 and will offer $25,000 to each those accepted onto the programme.  

Albert Lauritano, director of business development at BD Technologies, said: “There is an incredible market opportunity for startups looking to disrupt the healthcare and medical industry by combining medical and information technologies.  

“Working with entrepreneurs to bring new products and services to the market provides a great opportunity to support the next generation of world-class companies and help them accelerate their business with BD's global industry expertise." 

The programme will be hosted at the Microsoft Ventures office facilities in Tel Aviv, Israel, and startups will also have free access to Microsoft technology, as part of its BizSpark Plus plan - a software and support initiative for startups.  

Supporting health technology startups is unsurprisingly also an area of interest to big pharma, where one of the most recent moves came from Bayer, which is looking to work with digital health startups through its Grants4Apps initiative.

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