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Guest Post: JOBS Act Will Help Disruptive Innovation Emerge in Healthcare

April 19, 2012 at 2:43 PM ET by Albert Santalo
Summary: 
The JOBS Act will provide emerging companies and start-up ventures with increased access to vital capital, and lowers the barriers young companies face as they seek funding

We founded CareCloud, a provider of web-based software and services for medical groups, in 2009. We launched the company to be a force of change: a business focused on eliminating administrative waste and inefficiency by connecting doctors, patients, and other key stakeholders into a fully integrated digital healthcare ecosystem. 

CareCloud was successful in securing funding because investors responded strongly to our mission of lowering the costs of care and increasing quality To date, CareCloud has raised over $24 million in capital from angel investors and leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms like Norwest Venture Partners and Intel Capital. 

In less than three years, doctors in over thirty U.S. states are modernizing their medical practices and delivering better care to their patients through the CareCloud platform. Our company’s rapid growth has spurred the creation of well over 100 South Florida jobs and more than 20 in other locations in the United States.  Many more jobs will be created in coming years. 

The recent passing of the JOBS Act will provide emerging companies and start-up ventures like ours with increased access to vital capital. It lowers the barriers young companies face as they seek funding and will enable new entrants to enter the market more easily.  Like all industries, healthcare benefits from competition and a free market.  

Specifically, startups seeking seed capital can now access crowdfunding as a means to simply get started.  This will allow more ventures and subsequently more jobs to be created.  Not all ventures have the potential to command billion dollar valuations, and therefore attract venture capital.  However, these ventures may be worthy of smaller investments to get started and realize potential as they grow and prosper. 

This is an exciting time to be a member of the startup community, especially in South Florida. More and more start-ups are emerging here in all sectors, so the JOBS Act legislation could not have come at a better time. The growing interest in entrepreneurship, coupled with this legislation, means more entrepreneurs will have greater access to capital.  That ultimately means more jobs and opportunities – in South Florida and beyond. 

We live in unprecedented times.  We now have incredible tools and enablers to build companies, we will once again have abundant capital and a culture of creation, we have an incredible amount of entrepreneurship best practices available to all of us, and we have an amazing support system in Silicon Valley and beyond.  Although it was a thrill to attend President Obama’s JOBS Act signing ceremony, it will be an even bigger thrill to watch the results of the JOBS Act reap improvements on the startup community and the economy at large. I look forward to watching more entrepreneurs disrupt “business as usual” in their industries with the help of this legislation.

Learn more about the JOBS Act: