Unitus Seed Fund, a venture seed fund supporting start-ups has announced the StartHealth Competition, a nationwide challenge to identify promising early-stage health-tech start-ups. The winner will receive a cash prize of Rs 10 lakhs. Additionally, the winner and the runner-up will get an opportunity to pitch for a direct entry to its StartHealth program which includes receiving up to Rs 50 lakhs of non-dilutive fund, support from StartHealth partners PATH, Pfizer, Manipal Hospitals and Narayana Health, and a potential seed investment of Rs one crore.

The start-ups will be assessed based on the factors including impact on the masses, leadership and team, innovation, business model, and presentation quality. Areas of particular interest include, Healthcare service models enabled by technology and Healthcare diagnostic solutions leveraging on technology innovations.

Sectors include medical devices, diagnostics and therapeutics with wide primary healthcare impact, mobile monitoring, online marketplaces, app-based services and enterprise management and healthcare service delivery, and all the spaces where technological innovation and increased mobile-internet penetration are key drivers.

"Technology innovation is a key factor to making better healthcare services accessible and affordable for the masses in India. Our healthcare partners provide an amazing resource to early-stage health-tech entrepreneurs as they prepare for bringing their innovations to market in the country," said Mr Dave Richards, managing partner, Unitus Seed Fund.

Applications open on May 11, 2015 and the deadline for submission of application is June 17, 2015.