Online Medical Education Firm Becomes First START-UP NY Company at NYU Incubators
Board Vitals—a company aimed at creating online tools to prepare doctors, dentists, and nurses for specialty exams—has joined the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering’s Varick Street Incubator as its first participant in Governor Andrew Cuomo’s START-UP NY program.
The company aggregates and updates content from major publishers, individuals, and universities to create online question banks and full-length practice tests for physicians, residents, and medical students to study prior to their exams in such specialties as dermatology, surgery, cardiology, obstetrics, gynecology, emergency medicine, internal medicine, family medicine, pathology, cytology, psychiatry, and neurology.
Board Vitals was founded in the SoHo section of Manhattan in late 2013 by entrepreneurs Dan Lambert and Dr. Andrea Paul. It will locate to NYU’s Varick Street Incubator, which was launched in cooperation with New York City in 2009 to combine next-generation technology with highly adaptable business models. It is part of the School of Engineering’s thriving network of incubators, which have created more than 1,200 direct and indirect jobs and made a total economic impact of more than
$350 million in the city thus far.
Board Vitals is the first company to join the Varick Street Incubator under the auspices of New York State’s START-UP NY program, which seeks to attract new businesses to the state and to expand existing businesses. Companies accepted into the program pay no business, corporate, sales, property, state, or local taxes and no franchise fees for 10 years, and new employees pay no income tax for that same period. To be eligible, companies must be located on or near a select university or college in New York State, a requirement intended to provide direct access to advanced research laboratories, development resources, and experts in key industries. NYU’s START-UP NY Campus Plan was approved in late 2014, enabling the university to host tax-free areas and sponsor businesses for the program. Board Vitals will thus gain the ability to test products in state-of-the-art university-owned facilities, network with professors and their industrial connections, and call upon the skills of a large pool of faculty members and students.
“We are happy to welcome Board Vitals to the Varick Street family,” said Kurt H. Becker, vice dean for research, innovation and entrepreneurship at the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering. “We avidly support its founders’ mission to improve and revitalize medical education. They are a stellar fit for the academic and entrepreneurial mission of our incubators, and their presence will undoubtedly enrich our students, faculty, and other member companies.”
Co-founder Dan Lambert explained, “Board Vitals is building the most up-to-date medical training resource in the world. It's no small feat, and requires the unique intersection of academic institutions, startups, and a community. NYU offers us these crucial building blocks, and we're excited to work with the NYU Polytechnic Incubator team. Board Vitals is creating a lot of highly skilled jobs for New York and we couldn't do it without both NYU and state leadership." Co-founder Dr. Andrea Paul added: “By the end of 2015 we will have trained over 50,000 medical professionals and affected the lives of countless patients. As an M.D., I'm thrilled that NYU, Board Vitals, and the State of New York are coming together to build the future of medicine.'
“As START-UP NY shows, great accomplishments can happen when academia, private enterprise, and government work together,” said NYU Dean of Engineering Katepalli R. Sreenivasan. “By fostering start-up technology companies, New York State is helping NYU provide tools for success to entrepreneurs like Dan Lambert and Andrea Paul, who are seeking to address pressing needs.”
"I am delighted to see this development," said Senator Martin J. Golden, who created New York's incubator law and has aggressively sought to develop new industries and opportunities for people in the state. "NYU has been a leader in using its resources in conjunction with the state and private development to create jobs and opportunities here. We have said for some time that the ecosystem of incubator plus startup benefits provides a doubled strength unmatched elsewhere. This development is one more proof.”
About the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering Incubators
The NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering operates new-business incubators in cooperation with government and the private sector in Lower Manhattan, the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn, and Downtown Brooklyn. Opened in 2009 as the first incubator sponsored by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), the NYU School of Engineering Varick Street Incubator was launched with support from Trinity Real Estate. The second NYCEDC partnership, the DUMBO Incubator, received support from Two Trees Management. The Urban Future Lab is the third NYCEDC partnership, located in MetroTech Center, also supported by ADT Security Services and National Grid. Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Forest City Ratner, and Urban Green Council are partners, as well. The Urban Future Lab is home to the New York City Accelerator for a Clean and Resilient Economy (NYC ACRE), which has supported the city’s clean-energy and clean-tech entrepreneurs since 2009. NYC ACRE is supported by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). For more information, visit http://engineering.nyu.edu/business/incubators.
About Board Vitals
Board Vitals offers question banks that prepare physicians, nurses, and health professionals for specialty examinations. The company brings together content from major publishers, universities, and individuals on an ongoing basis, making Board Vitals the largest and most up to date training ecosystem in Medicine. Board Vitals uses machine learning and crowd curation to identify and improve Medical knowledge as information is published. Founded by Dan Lambert and Andrea Paul MD in 2013, Board Vitals is venture backed by Blueprint Health and Rothenberg Ventures. The company was named 'Most Promising Startup in New York' by Gust in 2014, and is used by over a hundred Academic Institutions across the US. For more information, visit http://www.boardvitals.com.
