Great attention for HealthTech scaleups at Investor breakfast
15 april, 2021
The Investor Breakfast Club today was relaunched digitally, focusing on HealthTech. The investors were introduced to three top quality startups, all addressing mental wellbeing in different ways.
The event, hosted by Xplorico, DigitalWell Ventures and Compare, made its first appearance since the pandemic. The new digital formula turned out to be a success, gathering interest from about 200 stakeholders wanting to attend.
– We’re happy, honoured and humble that so many high profile investors and participants from the startup support eco-system wanted to join us from all over the world, says David Holm, Investment Manager at DigitalWell Ventures, who was hosting the breakfast together with team members Lina Svensberg and Stefan Skoglund.
The HealthTech theme of the breakfast was manifested by keynote speakers from the whole ecosystem, including Jeremy McCrohan from Norway HealthTech, making more than 25 million NOK available for startups. Georgina Askeland from Hadean Ventures, the largest VC fund supporting Life Science in Scandinavia, pointed out the need for diversity and both female founders and investors, in the startup-scene. (Notable is that DigitalWell Ventures started on the right keel, with 50 percent of the initial companies in the accelerator founded by women.)
Magnus Bårdén, Managing Director of DigitalWell Arena, addressed the important task to support the public sector in their digital transformation, letting in innovative startups and creating secure test environments. In that area he also mentioned the unique demand-accelerator created by DigitalWell Arena.
David Holm and Lina Svensberg hosting the Investor Breakfast Club.
Obviously, there were a large number of investors tuning in. Trond Riiber Knudsen (TRK), Magnus Lund-Roland (Datum), Ingrid Teigland Akay (Hadean Ventures) and Johan Odvar Odfjell (Planet 9 Venture) to mention some of the more well known.
The investors were introduced to three top quality scaleups, that in different ways address mental wellbeing. StudyBee is already part of the Digital Ventures program, with a core product that make it possible to assess pupils in early stages, knowing that succeeding in school is crucial for a healthy life as an adult. The second startup, Mindmore, is specialized in digital cognitive tests revealing both dementia and stress related illness.
– Today 75 percent of people with Alzheimer never get a diagnose, said Sara Wallén, CEO and co-founder of Mindmore, also pointing out that every third patient in the Swedish primary care suffers from stress related illness.
The third startup, Flow, has already made a big impact. Their meditation app, involving stunning VR-views of the Icelandic scenery, has been noticed in international press and was awarded the Golden Egg as Iceland’s best startup, in 2018. Flow is now looking to scale up globally and is in negotiations of entering the DigitalWell Ventures accelerator program.