Scarp Technologies To Participate in Start-Up Chile
Scarp Technologies (Scarp) secured initial funding by being selected for the Chilean Government’s increasingly competitive and prestigious Start-Up Chile program, garnering $40k of equity-free seed capital. Scarp was one of 101 companies chosen out of 1509 applicants from around the world. Selected participants, 101 in total, hail from 37 different nations and comprise the fifth round of Start-Up Chile applicants.
Scarp is an early stage medical device company specializing in low cost, high quality oncology diagnostic medical devices for global markets that was founded by two entrepreneurship students in Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and London Business School’s joint Global Executive MBA program. Start-Up Chile will add to the company’s global roots with in-depth experience in Latin American healthcare markets.
“Our acceptance to Start-Up Chile is an excellent validation of our concept and provides the initial runway required to implement our plan,” says Jonathan Achenbach, Scarp Cofounder. Rising healthcare costs and the related limited access to medical technologies in low income and developing markets are a mutual concern of Scarp founders, Achenbach and Melissa Wingard-Phillips. Inspired by the generic pharmaceutical model that has saved the US over $1 trillion in the past ten years, and increased global access to life-changing drugs, Scarp aims to have a similar impact through lowering the costs of medical devices, both in the US and abroad.
The team’s original concept of connecting medical devices via a mobile application was vetted and discarded in Steve Blank’s Lean Launchpad course at Columbia. “The evolution of the Scarp business during and after my course is exactly what I hope for,” said Blank. “The customer development process is as important for the ideas that are discarded as for those that survive. Failure is an integral part of the search for the business model. The insights gained during that process will enable them to make the most of the Start-Up Chile opportunity and I have every expectation of future success for this team.”
As a Texas-based startup, Scarp joins Paige Brown of BookingMarkets, who was the first Texan and first female entrepreneur in the program and is now a recruiter and mentor for companies like Scarp. “StartUp Chile provides a tremendous platform for early stage entrepreneurs to achieve success,” says Brown. “With their passion, talent and solid business and technical experience, Jonathan and Melissa will be an excellent addition to the SUP Chile alumni.”
For more information about Scarp Technologies, please visit scarptechnolgies.com
