Mountain Labs streamlines medical research with software

Alex VanDerKolk is a graduate of the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business but also a fan of medical research. The recent recipient of a BBA is leveraging both passions to launch his own startup, Mountain Labs.

"I have always been interested in the medical field," VanDerKolk says.

The Ann Arbor-based company is developing data collection software, called Symport, for medical research. The idea is to create a platform that is simple to use, HIPAA complaint, and smart enough to streamline what can often be the archaic world of the healthcare research.

VanDerKolk has firsthand experience of how archaic that healthcare research can become. The 20-something worked as a data analyst for the University of Michigan Health System for a few years before he graduated late last year. He was appalled at the 20 Century-style tools university researchers were using to conduct 21st Century research on multi-million-dollar projects for a multi-billion dollar research institution.

"It was just a very inefficient process," VanDerKolk says. "We saw a lot of very smart people spending a lot of their time doing very mundane managerial tasks."

That inspired him to launch Mountain Labs last April. He raised $200,000 in seed capital and put together a seven-person team to build the software platform (with the help of Atomic Object’s Ann Arbor office) this summer. The technology is now in private Beta being tested with a few different research teams at U-M.

"Now we're starting to add software developers and bring our developers back in house," VanDerKolk says.

Mountain Labs is aiming to conduct a true pilot phase with a University of Michigan research department this fall. It is also looking to raise a $750,000 Series A by January so it can start looking at doing pilots outside of U-M.

Source: Alex VanDerKolk, president of Mountain Labs
Writer: Jon Zemke

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