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Daveler Entrepreneurship Program: Provides First Funding Opportunity for Startup and Serves as a Gateway to Exclusive Opportunities

Derek Strauss

In 2019, Derek Strauss applied to the Frank and Ellen Daveler Entrepreneurship Program hosted by the USF Center for Entrepreneurship. A year and a half after he became one of the program鈥檚 Daveler scholars, his innovation was accepted into the 2020 Class of the UnitedHealthcare Accelerator powered by Techstars.

The innovation, Immuto, makes it easy to build secure, connected, and personalized health applications. With the technology, you can quickly and effectively build digital health technology without having to manage sensitive user data. The Frank and Ellen Daveler Entrepreneurship Program offered Strauss the opportunity to increase his knowledge of business operations and gain insight into the entrepreneurial process.

Over the next three months, Strauss will be in Minneapolis to rapidly accelerate his business by working closely with UnitedHealthcare, Techstars, and a network of health care mentors.

Techstars is an American seed accelerator founded in 2006 in Boulder, Colorado. As of 2019, the company had accepted over 1,600 companies into its programs with a combined market capitalization of $18.2bn USD. Less than 1% of applicants are accepted.