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Sandbox Industries, the Chicago-based venture capital firm and business incubator behind one of Tech Cocktail’s Top 3 startups Excelerate Labs, recently announced its plans to launch Healthbox, a new business accelerator set to be one of the first U.S. accelerators catered exclusively to healthcare startups.

According to director Dan Philips, Healthbox will be filling a key gap in available funding/support for this industry. “Many healthcare investors target more mature companies, leaving few points of access for very early stage companies,” he told midVentures. “The healthcare market is ripe for innovation, and we believe this program will provide a valuable platform to support great ideas that address industry challenges. We see Healthbox as a program that attracts entrepreneurs from around the country and from numerous healthcare disciplines.”

Healthbox plans to select around ten companies in late 2011/early 2012 to participate in its three-month program, utilizing its team of strategic partners and mentors that includes large academic hospitals, industry insiders with operational and domain expertise, accomplished health technology entrepreneurs and general technology entrepreneurs. There are no restrictions on team makeup or company stage, whether single or non-technical.

“We’re looking for entrepreneurs who share our passion for finding the next big idea in healthcare,” said Matt Gabriel, a Sandbox vice president and co-founder of the program. “Our goal is to create a dynamic hub of innovation that offers unrivaled exposure and access to the healthcare market.”

Participants will receive shared legal and marketing services, business education, health industry education, $35K to $50K in capital, office space, and mentorship that culminates in a demo day pitch before a targeted group of angel and venture investors.

For more information on Healthbox or to find information on how to participate, visit Healthbox’s website, which just went live this week: HealthboxAccelerator.com.

Chicago-based startup Gtrot, a Facebook-centric service aimed at helping people make travel decisions, has just landed new funding from Lightbank, in an amount somewhere under $1 million. The company took top prize out of 50 teams in the 2009 Harvard College i3 Innovation Challenge.

“Part of what makes travel so fun is connecting with friends and new experiences,” co-founder Brittany Laughlin told midVentures. “We’re excited to expand our team to truly make travel social.”

Founded in 2009 by Laughlin and Zachary Smith, Gtrot helps users plan, book, and share travel experiences. By pulling information from a user’s trusted connections, it makes it possible to find intersecting itineraries, read friends’ recommendations for a given city, and set up alerts to know when friends are visiting certain locations. Additionally, the resource pulls deals from places like Groupon.

“The best way to get ready for your trip is to share it with your friends,” said co-founder Zachary Smith. “Gtrot makes it easy to connect with Facebook friends who can have an impact on your trip.”

With a simple click, users can notify contacts of upcoming plans and ask for advice. Gtrot then posts a message to each friend’s Facebook wall and pulls all of the related comments back into the site, connected with the user’s posted travel plans.

On the new funding for Gtrot, Paul Lee, a partner at Lightbank, described his own experience with the service: “I am going to travel to San Francisco in the next few weeks. I registered my trip on gtrot and I received an email notifying me which of my Facebook friends will be there. A similar email was sent to them and I have already made plans to have lunch with one of friends while I am there,” he said. “It is a refreshing approach to travel.”

For more information on Gtrot, which has already attracted close to 6,000 users, visit gtrot.com.

As of this month, there’s a new business incubator on the Midwest startup scene: J.E.D. | Venture Partners, launched by Indiana entrepreneur and attorney J. Eric Davis. More of a business incubator than a venture capital firm, this new acceleration company will focus on providing the entrepreneurial talent and services needed to help emerging technology companies launch, operate, and grow.

“It is time for an economic renaissance to reawaken American innovation and ingenuity,” founder Davis said in a press release. “I started J.E.D. | Venture Partners to accelerate the start-up and funding process for promising companies. In most cases entrepreneurs need more than just an attorney to help them get started. They need someone that understands technology development, fund-raising and how to launch a new product or service. They need a trusted and experienced partner that is able to provide meaningful executive support. My aim is to provide the legal and executive support during these growth stages, to enable the entrepreneurs to focus their energy on making their product or technology successful.”

The co-founder of Copient Technologies, Arxan Technologies, and Kylin Therapeutics, Davis is an attorney with a history of helping startups and inventors turn their ideas into businesses. With this new incubator, he plans to put his experience and knowledge to use in helping nurture startups through the process of raising funds.

“Whether [an] organization is attempting to launch a new business or product, develop new markets, prepare for fund raising, JED | Venture Partners provides the experienced leadership to fill this gap,” Davis told midVentures. “We are currently working to help develop and incubate some of the most promising technologies spinning out of the Midwest’s major research universities.”

Earlier this month, NoWait, a cloud-based seating management service for restaurants, made news by winning the Start-up, Boot-up competition held by managed hosting and Internet infrastructure company Contegix. There were dozens of Internet-based startups that competed, judged based on competitive differentiation, future growth plans, sales strategy, development platform, promise for commercial success or positive social change, and dependence on cloud technology. NoWait, with its cost-effective and low-maintenance reservation solutions for restaurants, was the winner.

“NoWait’s application to the Start-up, Boot-up competition shows both the power of the cloud and how to solve a frustration most of us have dealt with, and do it in an innovative and simple way,” Matthew Porter, CEO of Contegix said in a statement. “As we have seen with many of our own customers, 100 percent uptime is critical to their business, and their business is managed entirely in the cloud. NoWait has already demonstrated a sound business concept, a growth strategy, superior developer skills and a passionate commitment to their business, so we are excited to help them on their entrepreneurial journey with our award package.”

The contest awarded the cloud-based restaurant seating management service more than $75,000 worth of technology and free office space in St. Louis, which includes a Contegix managed web and managed database server, upgrades and unmanaged development tools, a Digital Matters three-month startup consulting package, a Customware TrainingRocket professional cloud training application, and a Zimbra email and collaboration solution delivered as a VMware virtual appliance.

“Winning the Contegix prize will help us ensure the highest possible service for our clients,” NoWait CEO Robb Myer told midVentures about the contest. “We are very excited to have won the Contegix Start up, Boot up business competition. It is another indicator that we are onto something hot. The time has come for a better restaurant wait list management process. We are very excited to be the company leading this innovation.”

For more information on NoWait, visit NoWaitApp.com.

Mobile advertising platform creator Tap.Me, a Chicago-based startup launched at last summer’s Excelerate Labs, announced yesterday that DVD rental company Redbox will be the first advertiser to participate in its relevant, noninterruptive, in-context game ad platform. Tap.Me was a COMPETE track startup at last year’s midVenturesLAUNCH.

“Redbox is a leader in the home entertainment industry, and with their upcoming launch of video games, we’re ready to provide them with a unique new way to connect with their customers,” said Joshua Hernandez, CEO of Tap.Me. “This program is a testament to Redbox’s forward thinking and ability to leverage trends as we move into a new age of consumer-brand communication.”

“When building a two-sided network, [it] is all about picking the right partners from the get go,” Hernandez added, via email to midVentures. “Redbox is not only a amazing company to work with, but they truly believe in supporting innovation. We could not be more excited to be working such a top brand in refining our offerings and making sure we are building advertising products that brands find value in. Their insight and feedback has helped propel forward as we present Tap.Me to the advertising world.”

Redbox, which currently operates 21,000 kiosks nationwide, plans to add video game rentals to its offerings on June 17. That’s why this partnership with Tap.Me comes at such an opportune time, as it will allow the popular rental company to sponsor real-world rewards for games played on iOS-based devices like iPhones and iPads, all while enhancing its brand to today’s mobile market of over 30 million gamers.

“Adding a mobile gaming component via the Tap.Me platform is a natural extension of our marketing strategy,” said Gary Cohen, senior vice president of marketing and customer experience at Redbox. “It allows us to generate brand awareness with gamers where they’re already playing, without interrupting their experience.”

Due to this partnership, in the future, Redbox customers will be able to earn real-world rewards through fun and fast-paced mobile games, and what’s more, they’ll be able to share their achievements on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, heightening the company’s exposure further.

Last week, it was announced that Tap.Me had closed its Series A round of funding, adding Rockfish Brand Ventures, a new venture arm of Rockfish to the round.

For more information about Tap.Me, visit Tap.Me/wp.

Post edited May 20 by Shannalee T’Koy.