Concierge healthtech startup CourMed to open regional office in Miami Beach

CourMed, a concierge health and wellness startup, will open a regional office in Miami Beach, bringing software engineering jobs to the city.

The Texas-based startup, founded and run by Derrick Miles, is scouting office locations now, and CourMed plans to create at least 10 jobs paying an average of $80K. After spending about a year building valuable connections in the Miami area, CEO Miles is also moving here with his family.

CourMed provides well-care solutions such as medical and nutritional infusion therapies and vaccines for consumers in their homes, offices or on their travels. Miles, a former hospital administrator who spent 15 years as a healthcare executive in markets around the country, launched the startup in 2018 as a prescription delivery company. CourMed still offers that service but in April this year it pivoted to the grander healthcare concierge model, and Miles has been busy making connections and partnerships, many of which center on South Florida.

With CourMed’s partnerships with physicians, nurses, pharmacists, delivery drivers and others, “you can be in your home, you can be at your corporate office, you can be in a luxury hotel like the Edition on Miami Beach and get monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, prescriptions or IV vitamin therapy,” Miles said.

CourMed is developing a B2C model as well as a B2B model. On the B2B side, its customers would include independent pharmacies, laboratories, CBD stores and immune-nutrition drink providers. To develop the B2C side, the company has hired a director of marketing for a wide reach and is working on partnerships such as with hotel groups and professional sports teams so that same-day wellness services are available for guests and players.

The startup’s targets health-conscious adults with an above average net worth. “Our typical patient tends to be 50 years and older, and those people tend to live in four states – California, Arizona, Texas and Florida. The demographic that we typically serve was overwhelmingly in Miami Beach so that’s why we picked Miami Beach as our regional headquarters,” said Miles, who was born and raised in the Tampa Bay area.

Miles’ connections to Miami have been growing for more than a year. Last October, the CEO won the pitch competition for CourMed at the Black Men Talk Tech’s conference. Miles also connected with Black Angels Miami, and BAM’s Executive Director Kevin Cadette and Chairman Barron Channer were particularly helpful behind the scenes connecting him with key partners, such the Greater Miami Hotel Association, and to Baptist Health, which has an innovative program in the concierge space, Miles said. Baptist also runs the new Knight Foundation-funded Fellowship for Healthcare Technology Innovation, a one-year program in which Miles is a  fellow in the inaugural cohort.

“Black Angels Miami embraces a philosophy of being helpful to founders whether or not our members are investing. It was a delight to be helpful to CourMed through our network of relations across Miami and in the healthcare sector. We regularly use the collective network and expertise of our membership to help accelerate progress for founders that we invite into our friend circle,” said Channer. “Personally, I am excited to see a growing wave of talented Black startup founders, like Derrick, migrating to Miami. The members of Black Angels Miami are here to connect, help, and invest in talent … that also includes Black talent.”

Miles said the new Miami Beach office will be focused on its enterprise software, which will allow CourMed to scale its concierge platform services to other areas. The new jobs will be largely software engineering roles, he said, and CourMed will receive Miami Beach incentives if hiring targets are met. The CourMed fulltime team is just seven people now, but ready to grow.

Other than his own and some friends and family money, CourMed has been helped by Google for Startups and particularly Microsoft, which has supported the startup with resources and funding by way of zero-interest loans. With the Microsoft funds and support to help it grow, CourMed plans aggressive hiring. So far, CourMed has avoided venture capital, allowing the startup to keep its equity, Miles said.

“When liquidity happens, the generational wealth happens for the individuals who put the money in early, and those are the people that I really appreciate the most when CourMed was nothing but an idea on a piece of paper.”

Adds Channer: “CourMed has a significant value proposition and Miami is a global hub for healthcare. We want CourMed to grow into a significant company with Derrick at the helm. Black Angels Miami is ready and waiting for the day CourMed is ready to add us to their cap table. We have quite a few members who love the healthcare space.”

How it started: CourMed, founded in 2018, began as a prescription delivery company but now aims to provide a wide range of concierge health and wellness services, with both a B2B and B2C business model.

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Nancy Dahlberg