A student-run startup at the University of Connecticut has received $2.2 million from the Peter J. Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. This is the largest investment in a student business the Werth Institute has given to date.
The startup is Bastion Health, a men’s health venture. Bastion functions as an app-based ecosystem designed to nurture men’s health. This covers things like education, telehealth visits and lifestyle tracking.
Bastion was founded by Reza Amin and Khashayar Dashti. Amin is a UConn graduate student in the School of Engineering’s Master of Engineering in Global Entrepreneurship program. The company is based at UConn’s Technology Incubation Program (TIP) facility at UConn Health in Farmington.
The app will also feature diagnostic technology developed by Amin. This technology allows a user to test their fertility with their smartphone.
In December 2017, Peter J. Werth’s $22.5 million commitment to UConn established the Werth Institute. Werth is a philanthropist and founder and CEO of ChemWerth, Inc. This gift also meant Werth got a dorm named in his honor: the Peter J. Werth Tower, home to eight of UConn’s learning communities.
The telehealth portion of the app ecosystem is expected to launch in the near future. Amin’s smartphone testing technology will take longer to integrate as it requires FDA approval.
In addition to UConn, Bastion has also received support from Yale, MassChallenge, CTNext and Webster Bank.
More information about Bastion can be found at getbastion.com.
