In the last few years, the Southeast European region has become a home to many health tech startups (consumer-facing applications) and medtech startups (technologies used in hospital settings), with all of them on a mission to improve healthcare on a global scale.
While medtech is the new frontier of innovation, it is also one of the most challenging sectors to work in – with startups and medtech companies from the region developing new technologies for the healthcare industry, providing solutions for different problems that hospitals, clinics, healthcare professionals and patients are facing.
That being said, the SEE region is now a hotspot for medtech and health tech startups, and in this article we present our choice of some of the most promising of those and their solutions.
Medtech and health tech startups from Southeast Europe
mBrainTrain – Serbia
mBrainTrain is a Serbian tech company, focused on building mobile, wearable devices that measure brain activity by electroencephalography, EEG, which is a test that measures electrical activity in the brain using small, metal discs attached to the scalp.
The company’s products allow users to control their own brain signals during an entertaining training program in order to improve general brain fitness.
Founded in 2012, aims to develop fully mobile, wearable devices for recording and utilizing brain activity, and its products are present across 40 countries. According to the company, it strives to make EEG as an invisible and seamless piece of technology that will ultimately blend into the lives of everyday people.
Intelligencia – Greece
Intelligencia is a Greek AI software platform that helps pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies reduce drug development risks and introduce new drugs to market faster. The startup is also pioneering the use of Machine Learning algorithms to assess, quantify, and reduce the risk of clinical development.
Aiming to bring innovative therapies to patients faster and with reduced risk, Intelligencia offers drug development companies ML-fueled predictions about the trials they conduct to aid their critical decision-making process.
Last year, the company raised $12M In a Series A round led by the European healthtech investor MTIP, using the investment for product development and the expansion of its Greek R&D team.
XVision – Romania
XVision is a Romanian startup that uses artificial intelligence algorithms to analyze medical images, to assist radiologists in the diagnostic process.
The startup’s AI software, which is implemented in Romanian chain of private clinics Regina Maria and used internationally in over 60 clinics and hospitals, analyses over 26,000 chest X-rays and 10,000 lung CTs per month.
Founded in 2018 in the city of Timisoara, the company’s platform is operational in over 60 private hospitals in Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland. At the beginning of this year, the startup raised €1M, which it will use to accelerate their access to Western Europe, develop new products, improve existing ones and hire new staff with expertise in AI, software development, medical imaging, and business development.
Zana Technologies – Albania/Germany
Zana Technologies is a Germany-based conversational AI technology startup founded by Albanian computer scientist Julia Hoxha. Zana’s digital solutions such as chatbot and voice assistants aim to innovate and improve healthcare by using ML and AI technology.
The company mainly works with traditional healthcare organizations, and it also offers pharma and medtech companies patient companion solutions for remote clinical trial and post-market research.
Zana’s latest project includes the use of digital tools for telemonitoring patients with respiratory diseases. The in-app companion assists the patient daily to track symptoms and vital signs, as well as to capture their voice through dedicated speech tasks combined with appropriate physical exercise.
Healee – Bulgaria/US
Healee is a digital health platform with telehealth, scheduling and digital check-in capabilities. It consists of a web portal and a mobile app where patients can search for providers, book appointments and submit medical history. On the provider side, physicians can deliver virtual care using the latest tools such as AI, remote patient monitoring, queue management, payments and more.
Founded in 2018, Healee is offered as a white label solution, unique in its ability to fit diverse use cases with seamless customer branding and infrastructure, configurable features and workflows. In May 2020, Healee raised $892K in a pre-seed round led by Eleven Ventures.
Joey – Bosnia/US
Joey is a Bosnia-founded on-demand marketplace and telehealth platform for maternal and child health, connecting parents with various practitioners like lactation consultants, doulas, and sleep consultants.
The platform offers solutions that go from “search” to “speak” with an expert in less than 30 minutes, especially crucial for nursing problems throughout the night.
The app is currently in public beta, as it aims to help practitioners break free from hospitals and health systems to start and manage their own private practice.
FindMeCure – Bulgaria
FindMeCure is an online platform to search and compare clinical trials, based on criteria including status of the trial (recruiting, completed, inactive, not recruiting), sponsor’s background, treatment development stage, placebo awareness among others.
If the users find and apply for a trial they’re interested in, then FindMeCure connects them to the trial team on their behalf until they can connect and talk with the relevant person.
Founded in 2015, the platform claims to have helped over 370,000 patients search for clinical trials and got connected to the team of their chosen studies. In 2017, the startup raised $420K in a seed round.
Smart MedBox – Serbia
Smart MedBox is a Serbian healttech startup that creates tech solutions to fight therapy non-adherence by using connected technology, psychology of gamification and “sentinel effect” (tendency for human performance to improve when participants are aware that their behavior is being evaluated) for the patients to start accepting therapy.
The Serbian startup has two hardware products that track prescribed therapy along with pill usage and sounds alarms when it is time to take the therapy: Medical Box which is in-home solution, also ideal for elderly patients as it doesn’t interfere with their habits, and, their other product, the Medical Cap which is on-the-go solution for patients.
Silver Technologies – Croatia
Silver Technologies is a Croatian startup that has designed a monitor smartwatch – a biometric mobile data and voice communications device, in conjunction with a monitor web application platform allowing remote monitoring of wide array of sensed data in real-time.
The product provides an integrated system for seamless data and voice interaction between elderly, caregiver and healthcare professionals.
It also allows users with a 24/7 healthcare monitoring about their senior family members. This information can be accessed by users themselves or shared with medical doctors and other healthcare professionals.
Telios Care – Romania
Telios Care is a Romanian startup that provides telemedicine services and connects patients with healthcare professionals. According to the company, with Telios Care patients can get a diagnosis and treatment options within 30 minutes.
Last year, Telios raised €700K for accelerating its development and expansion plans in the region. The startup aims to add new, faster, medical services, like home visits, and expects to increase the use of its services, estimating a doubling in the number of patients, reaching 200K.
