Chicago’s Sandbox Industries is building a multi-industry business of working with major corporations across several unique platforms, and Paul Brown is in the middle of these activities. Several years ago, while he was still an executive with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield system, Brown co-founded and raised the capital for BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners I and II, which he also co-managed for over five years. Sandbox manages nearly $300M across these two healthcare funds for twenty-five separate Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans. With Brown’s involvement, Sandbox also has built the well-known Healthbox accelerator programs that have now run in Chicago, London, Boston, Jacksonville and Nashville, with further expansion scheduled for 2014. Sandbox also co-manages a food and agriculture venture fund with a number of major corporate partners. Brown now heads the firm’s business development activities, including their new innovation consulting practice, Sandbox Innovation Partners, which matches corporate clients with disruptive early-stage companies.
The unit represents 25 Blue Cross and Blue Shield units. The firm also co-manages the Sandbox Cultivian Food & Agriculture Fund for a number of food and agriculture-related corporations.
Brown was a lawyer for 10 years at US-based law firm Kirkland & Ellis, before leaving in 2002 to join the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, which had been one of his clients at Kirkland & Ellis. He is a graduate of University of Utah and the Northwestern University School of Law.
The unit’s “very popular” Healthbox accelerator has run seven programmes in the US and London. Brown added: “We also connect corporates with innovative emerging companies via a budding matchmaking and consulting practice.”
