Enterprising Health accelerator invests in local startups

Enterprising Health is a business accelerator with an aim of creating value in more places than just a startup’s bottom line.

The Midtown-based organization is an offshoot of St. John Providence Health System’s Community Health Program. Enterprising Health provides consulting services, mentoring and seed funding to startups that could help improve the population’s health.

“What we’re looking for is health-impact,” says Erica Thrash-Sall, director of Enterprising Health. “We don’t take any stake in the business.”

The 5-year-old business accelerator is staffed by Thrash-Sall and is looking to hire a program manager now. It has provided seed funding (up to $10,000 per venture) to eight new businesses over the last year. Those include Fresh Corner Cafe, which provides healthy meals at inner city corner stores, and the Buffalo Street Farm, an urban farm near Jayne Field on Detroit’s East Side.

One of Enterprising Health’s other investments is in Healthy Dollar, a Flint-based company that focuses on stocking healthy food options at the front of dollar stores in underserved communities.

“It’s meant to introduce healthy food options and make them affordable to people who might not think they can buy them,” Thrash-Sall says.

Enterprising Detroit is currently looking for candidates to take part in its startup programs for this year. For information, click here.

Source: Erica Thrash-Sall, director of Enterprising Health
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.