Watsi, legally Watsi, Inc., is a nonprofit healthcare crowdsourcing platform that enables individual donors to directly fund medical care for individuals in

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

without access to affordable medical care.

Background

Watsi was the first nonprofit funded by

seed accelerator Startup accelerators, also known as seed accelerators, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs, that include mentorship and educational components and culminate in a public pitch event or demo day. While traditional business incubators are often g ...

Y Combinator Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, St ...

. They have also been funded by the

Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Started in 2002, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK Foundation) is a global venture philanthropy firm supporting social enterprises. History The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Draper Richards, a venture capit ...

. In November 2015 the company announced a $3.5M growth round of donations led by 12 investors including Paul Graham, Tencent, and The Pershing Square Foundation. Medical partners included

Nyaya Health Possible (also known as Possible Health, and legally registered as Nyaya Health, A Nonprofit Corporation) is a nonprofit that works to achieve the vision of everyone everywhere having access to high-quality healthcare. In pursuit of this vision a ...

, Dr. Rick Hodes, Wuqu' Kawoq, Children's Surgical Centre,

CURE International CURE International (also known as CURE, formerly Crippled Children's United Rehabilitation Effort or CCURE or C²URE) is a Christian nonprofit organization based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. CURE's efforts are focused on providing medical care to c ...

, African Mission Healthcare Foundation, Hope for West Africa, Project Muso, Lwala Community Alliance, Living Hope Haiti, Floating Doctors, Burma Border Projects, Partner for Surgery, International Care Ministries, The Kellermann Foundation, and World Altering Medicine. In 2014, Watsi's old logo, which had a blue cross with a white triangle, was the subject of a trademark suit from the

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBS, BCBSA) is a federation, or supraorganization, of, in 2022, 34 independent and locally operated BCBSA companies that provide health insurance in the United States to more than 106 million people. It was ...

, leading the company to change their logo to white triangles on a blue circle.

References

External links

* {{Crowdfunding platforms Crowdfunding platforms of the United States Health charities in the United States Non-profit organizations based in San Francisco Organizations established in 2011 Y Combinator companies Medical and health organizations based in California Online nonprofit organizations 501(c)(3) organizations 2011 establishments in the United States