Marcelo Calbucci has a new gig. The founder of Seattle 2.0 today was named the chief technology officer at EveryMove, a Seattle startup that’ says it is “revolutionizing your health and fitness through personal technology.” In addition, the company named Seattle angel investor and BuddyTV CEO Andy Liu to its board, and announced a partnership with Premera Blue Cross of Mountlake Terrace.
The startup is led by Russell Benaroya, a former investment banker and former executive at GoTo who has dabbled in health care related businesses since 2003.
“Technology is just scratching the surface of how to improve people’s health in a meaningful way, but as the population rapidly shifts to computer and mobile solutions, we believe it will ultimately have a central role in how people track and sustain their personal health activities,” Benaroya said.
EveryMove joins a long list of startup companies in the Seattle area looking to capitalize on opportunities in making the population healthier. Those range from Limeade to Free & Clear, which was acquired for $130 million in 2009 by Inverness Medical Innovations.
Calbucci writes about the new position in a blog post, noting that “EveryMove will change how people think and act in terms of physical activity and their overall health.” Calbucci is currently training for a half marathon admits that he didn’t have much knowledge of the health care industry when he started talking to Benaroya and Liu about the startup.
“I come from a tech-consumer background. Together, we are putting together a business and product vision that could revolutionize the life of millions (tens of millions? hundreds of millions?) of people, and that’s big,” writes Calbucci, adding that the health care industry is about 15 years behind when it comes to new technologies.
“I hear people talking about how big the travel industry is ($800 billion according to some) and how they are going to disrupt the incumbents, yada, yada, yada. Well, the health care industry is actually over $2.5 trillion and this industry is still running Windows 95 on 386 machines! Talk about a disruption waiting to happen,” he notes.
Calbucci shut down Sampa in 2009, and he left his gig at startup incubator Conceivian earlier this year. EveryMove is not yet ready to disclose the details of what they are building, but he said that it will integrate with existing fitness and health applications like RunKeeper, Fitbit, Weight Watchers and Spark People.
