Top European telemedicine companies

Ali Parsadoust (commonly known as Ali Parsa) is a British-Iranian healthcare entrepreneur and former investment banker (PhD in Engineering Physics). He is the founder and CEO of the digital healthcare company Babylon Health — that provides accessible, affordable healthcare by combining AI with doctors — and the co-founder and former CEO of hospital operator Circle Health — a provider of health care service with investigation and treatment of diseases.

In 2011 Ali Parsa said: "If healthcare was an airline, we are losing a 747 every month – the Americans are losing one every week – by the number of people who are unnecessarily dying in our industry. We have nothing like total quality control, we have nothing like the productivity and efficiency gains that other industries have."

In particular, the global healthcare expenditure is something like $8 trillion ($2 tn in Europe and $3.5 tn in the US), projected to $10 trillion in 2022, and nevertheless half the world’s population has no access to healthcare. Moreover, 100 million are pushed into extreme poverty because of health expenses, forcing them to survive on just $1.90 or less a day and 800 million people spend at least 10% of their budgets on health expenses for themselves (or a sick family member). But most importantly we don't have early prevention solutions for all in order to detect a problem early on, that "translates" to a 100$ medical solution rather than a 10-100K$ solution when is too late.

Accordingly, the future of healthcare is healthtech allowing a decentralised (patient empowerment), personalised (at molecular level) and proactive data-centric preventive medicine. So, healthtech is the fastest growing vertical within the healthcare sector right now and it includes any technology-enabled healthcare product and service that can be delivered or consumed outside of a hospital or physician’s office. The emerging spaces within healthcare and healthtech are AI drug discovery, Assistive tech, Neurotechnology, Mental health tech, Sleep tech, Psychedelics, Fertility tech, Nanomedicine, Anit-aging, Medical robotics, Gene therapies, Medical exoskeletons and prosthetics and CRISPR diagnostics.

Moreover, the convergence of digital technologies with health, healthcare and society in order to enhance the efficiency of healthcare delivery to make medicine more personalised and precise, is called digital health (a $350B market, projected to $600B by 2024, McKinsey data), and includes telemedicine, AI doctors, wearables, virtual reality and appoitment booking.

In fact, Ali's Babylon Health (London, UK 2013) is providing remote and affordable consultations with doctors and health care professionals, via text and video messaging in UK, Canada, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and the US. With Babylon's app, you can talk to a physician within minutes via phone or video call or via their text service and monitor your health with their comprehensive tracking system, manage chronic conditions and access health history. Its mission is to put an accessible and affordable health service in the hands of every person on earth, so right now, a subset of its services are also available in Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

So far, Babylon Health has raised a total of $631.1M and has invested in Higi (a platform that enables and empowers users to self-screen their biometrics and share that data with a trusted health professional) on May 27, 2020. This investment was valued at $30M.

Right now, Babylon could reach an agreement with Alkuri Global Acquisition Corp. and Babylon could be valued at $3 to $4 billion (Yahoo).

But apart AI digital healthcare Babylon, other emerging digital health (telehealth, telemedicine) companies in Europe are KRY, Doctolib, accuRx, Min Doktor, Ada Health, Qare, zava, Docplanner and Push Doctor, with Babylon, KRY and Doctolib being the top three (21% of the $41 billion worth European healthtech market).

For example, KRY (known as Livi outside of the Nordics) is transforming the world of healthcare by making care more accessible and convenient, enabling teleconsultation since 2016. The company (Stockholm, Sweden 2015) operates in: Norway, UK, Germany, Italy, France and has recently expanded its Livi connect product to Italy, Spain, Poland, US and Canada. So far, KRY has amassed over 2 million completed patient consultations, following its launch in March 2015. KRY has raised a total of $251.8M and has acquired Enjo (helps you do quick mindful reflections on what you’re grateful for, meaningful family moments and what your close ones mean to you) on Apr 2, 2019.

Right now, KRY is said to be closing in on a massive funding round ($300M) that will push its valuation to $2 billion.

The third biggest European telemedicine company is Doctolib (Paris, Ile-de-France, France 2013), an online and mobile booking platform that helps you to find a specialist doctor nearby and make an appointment. Doctolib has been offering its service to all French and German physicians in the past months due to the pandemic and more than 2.5 million online appointments have been booked on its platform since the COVID-19 crisis began. So far, around 800,000 patients have adopted online visits through Doctolib during this period. Doctolib has raised a total of $266.7M and has acquired Mondocteur.fr (an app that allows you to book doctor appointments) on Jul 12, 2018. KRY (Livi) and Doctolib are both market leaders in French telemedicine.

Smaller, but worth to mention other european AI digital healthcare companies are:

AccuRx (London, UK 2016) is on a mission to bring patients and their healthcare teams together and its main product is Chain SMS, a messaging program used by doctor surgeries to communicate with patients. Since the pandemic in the UK, AccuRx integrated a videotelephony system into Chain SMS, and now "more than 90% of primary care clinics in England are using it" for online appointments. AccuRx has raised a total of £9.1M.

Min Doktor (Lund, Skane Lan, Sweden 2013) wants to make health care available by allowing you to meet experienced doctors on your terms. Min Doktor has raised a total of $84.4M in funding over 6 rounds.

Ada Health (Berlin, Germany 2011) connects medical knowledge with intelligent technology to help all people actively manage their health and medical professionals to deliver effective care. Since its global launch in 2016 almost 20 million assessments have been completed. It is free of charge and has the highest consumer ranks among similar apps. Ada Health has raised a total of $69.3M.

Qare (Paris, France 2016) is also providing medical video consultation services, and is France’s largest, fastest-growing provider of high-quality telemedicine services. Qare has raised a total of €26M.

Qare was acquired by HealthHero (offers remote access to experienced doctors and expert clinicians directly to patients, insurance-policy holders and employees) on Apr 12, 2021 for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will allow HealthHero to cover 22 million users, for GP support, prescription services, mental health consultations and musculoskeletal specialists.

Zava (London, UK 2010) is an online medical service provider and offers consultations, diagnostics and medication without the need for a face-to-face visit. Zava has raised a total of $33.7M in funding over 3 rounds and their most recent acquisition on Jan 15, 2021 was sprechstunde.online (that offers video consultation hours are quick, easy and secure).

Docplanner (Warsaw, Poland 2011) is a booking platform and management software provider for doctors. DocPlanner has raised a total of $140.5M and its most recent acquisition was TuoTempo (an online medical management software that provides an online self-service appointment scheduling system) on Oct 29, 2019. DocPlanner has seven offices worldwide serving 30 million unique patients on its websites who generate 2 million bookings every month. In response to high demand for telehealth services during the pandemic, they launched remote video consultations powered by Vonage's Video API.

Finally, Push Doctor (Manchester, UK 2013) is creating the future of healthcare and is evolving to encompass the widest range of medical, health, wellness and lifestyle products/services with the core goal of enabling its customers to live happier, longer lives. Push Doctor was the UK's first platform to offer video consultations and has a current reach of 5.4 million patients. Push Doctor has raised a total of $55.3M so far.

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New report (health.dealroom.co) with INKEF Capital and MTIP exploring the future of healthcare.