By Matthew Holt

This time of year is all about selection. Which demos should we have for the Health 2.0 Conference coming up next month? Who to have speak in the Health 2.0 Europe Conference in Berlin in October? How to fit in a vacation around the Health 2.0 India Conference in December? But believe it or not, Health 2.0 isn’t all there is!

Rebecca Lynn, Ching Wu, & their colleagues at Morgenthaler Ventures started DC to VC last year, and this year they’re hosting the DC to VC Start-Up Showcase during Health Innovation Week in San Francisco. It’ll be on September 22nd at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, CA. I’m delighted to be MCing this event, and was even more fascinated to be a (minor) part of the selection process. Rebecca really showed that it is hard to be a VC (I’m not kidding), but with great skill and lots of patience she helped us cut to the chase of the more than 125 applications and elevator pitches. There were lots of great submissions and some companies everyone loved didn’t even make the final group.

Today the finalists were announced including a class ready for seed stage (very early) and one slightly further along (ready for Series A). So drum roll please and get ready. Here’s the Seed group:

• Careticker is a platform that helps patients plan in advance for a hospital or outpatient procedure. (Miami, FL)
• EyeNetra is the most affordable mobile eye diagnostic ever developed, allowing anyone to take their own eye test, get a prescription for glasses, and connect to eye care providers all on a mobile phone. (Cambridge, MA)
• Skimble powers the mobile wellness movement with a cross-platform ecosystem of fun and dynamic coaching applications. Its latest title, Workout Trainer, ranks Top 10 in the free Healthcare & Fitness category on iPhone/iPad.  (San Francisco, CA)
• SurgiChart is a mobile, cloud-based, social-clinical network for surgeons to exchange relevant perioperative, case-centric information. (Nashville, TN)
• Telethrive provides patients an instant connection to doctors for a medical consultation using any telephone or computer with complete audio and video conferencing. (Los Angeles, CA)
• Viewics provides hospitals with cloud-based analytics and business intelligence solutions which enable them to drive enhanced operational, financial and clinical outcomes. (San Francisco, CA)

And the Series-A Finalists:

• AbilTo develops and delivers online mental health programs to managed care members and enterprise workforces that help reduce payor costs while improving overall health outcomes. (New York, NY)
• Axial Exchange moves healthcare organizations towards pay-for-performance, enabling providers to coordinate care and measure clinical quality across disparate settings. (Raleigh, NC)
• Empower Interactive‘s online services deliver proven psychotherapy methodologies via an e-learning platform to greatly improve the economics and accessibility of mental and behavioral health solutions. (San Francisco, CA)
• Jiff is the first HIPAA-compliant iPad platform for patient education in the medical industry –used by doctors, nurses, patients and more. (San Francisco, CA)
• YourNurseIsOn.com employs bi-directional text, phone and email communications to help hospitals and agencies put “the right healthcare providers, in the right places, right now.”   (New Haven, CT)

I’m delighted to say that three of the Series A group have demoed at Health 2.0 in the past, and at least one of the other two will be there this year. Axial Exchange actually launched at Health 2.0 in 2010–as did Telethrive from the Seed group, and Jiff’s team includes James Currier, who’s behind Medpedia.

And after the fun is over for DC to VC it’ll be immediately followed that afternoon in the same room by the first west coast swing of NYC-based Start-Up Health, the new venture from Steve Krein, Jerry Levin, Scott Case and more which is helping new start-ups get access to funding. They’re going to be having a Roundtable on “Bridging the Gap between Health and Wellness IT Entrepreneurs and Investors” moderated by Thomas Goetz, Executive Editor at Wired magazine and the author of The Decision Tree, and Bob Kocher, Partner at Venrock and former Special Assistant to President Obama for Healthcare and Economic policy.

And all this is before HealthcampSFBay, the Health 2.0 Code-a-thon and the Health 2.0 Conference. It’s going to be a wild week!

Want to come to DC to VC and Start-Up Health?  I thought you did. It’s invite only, but I know the gal who knows the gal, so let me know and I’ll try to help!