Pulse Charter Connect
Pulse Charter Connect is a concierge service sitting between the transplant centers and transportation fleets, optimizing the efficiency of medical logistics.
It might not take a rocket scientist to operate an organ transport company, but it probably does require one to revolutionize the industry through innovation.
That appears to be what entrepreneur Laura Epstein, an aerospace engineer by training and education, is doing with Pulse Charter Connect, the Chicago-based startup we were introduced to while Epstein and the company were members of the 2023 Techstars Physical Health Fort Worth accelerator cohort.
Organ transportation is a $multibillion industry with what Epstein identified as droves of inefficiencies that cause delays and downright failures in the delivery of thousands of life-giving organs because of logistical breakdowns.
Pulse Charter Connect is a concierge service sitting between the transplant centers and transportation fleets, optimizing the efficiency of medical logistics.
And saving lives.
“I was working for a charter company that was flying around organs and surgical teams,” Epstein says. “I saw a lot of the inefficiencies of the communication and scheduling, so, I really decided to dive in there to learn more about it and that was really how Pulse Charter Connect was started.”
Pulse Charter’s digital scheduling solution, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with its real time data and insights set it apart from traditional brokers, Epstein says.
Epstein formed the company in 2022 while she was pursuing an MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Aviation has always been a thing for her.
A Long Island native, Epstein has an aerospace engineering degree from University of Virginia. After graduating, she worked for the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington, D.C., as an engineer. She also has a pilot’s license. Flying was something her father wanted to do but never did, she says, perhaps inspiring her own ambition to get in the air.
On the other hand, her father did start his own logistics company.
“He was definitely what really pushed me forward to become an entrepreneur and do it,” she says. “I think by nature of doing it when I was still in school, it was a little bit easier of a path. But then it was the decision of my belief in the mission versus my opportunity cost of getting a different role.
“That was really the difficult part of deciding to do this full time. But I knew it was gonna work out, and I'm confident that we're still gonna be able to get to our five-year goal.”
She has gone from ideation in 2022 to an operational company in 2024.
Revenue is beginning to climb with more and more transports, she says. Team members have grown to four full time and six part-timers.
Techstars Fort Worth helped her company, she says.
“I loved my time doing TechStars,” Epstein says. “We got to meet a lot of interesting innovators in that space. We were also able to connect with some investors in the area that ended up investing in the company.”
She took a tour of Cook Children’s Medical Center to see its fleet and how they schedule aircraft.
“Fort Worth was particularly a great community to be a part of.”
She is also working on a contract with a medical institution on the West Coast.
So, suffice it to say, things are looking up for Pulse Charter Connect.
And life itself, too.
