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Hello and welcome everybody this is
joe from startup rate.io your startup podcast and youtube
blog bringing you an english world
premiere together with elias from we just uh sorted this out dianovie here from
lovely hessen and this interview is as always supported by hessen trade and
invest more about them later elias glad to have you here thanks for having me As people know,
your LinkedIn profile will be linked down here in the show notes in the blog.
I've seen you worked with pretty well-known names like Arthur D. Little in consulting.
You've been working with Bosch. But can you share a little bit about your background?
What have you done? Introduce yourself just a little bit before founding the INOV.
Yeah, sure. So as you already mentioned, I live in Hessen in Darmstadt,
to be exact. I did my bachelor and then also my master here at TU Darmstadt.
I studied industrial engineering with the focus already on innovation and entrepreneurship.
And then when I've done my exchange semester in Finland, in Helsinki,
I started to shift the focus more and more towards starting a company.
But as you said before, during my studies, I also worked in consulting,
tried to get an overview of a very different kind of industry to see what interests me most.
And also tried to, let's say, more corporate world with Bosch,
but also worked in a startup already.
Quantico, you mentioned already. So, yeah, these were basically my professional
career stations so far. A question about Alto University in Finland.
I assume you, because you've been there from August to December,
and I assume in December you had to wear pretty warm socks there, right?
That's actually true, yeah. And I also didn't add that much light.
That was the other thing.
How good is your finish? Oh, that's a tough question.
I think I tried maybe for three lessons or something, and then I basically gave
up because it's a really hard language, to be honest.
And I'm more of a numbers guy than a language guy, so I focused more on this part.
Okay what inspired you to transition
to transition from your previous roles at starting
your own venture so we
basically started the startup out of
university so we did a lot of research in this
field ai and medicine in general especially my
my co-followers nils and nicholas and as we
not only wanted to deliver like a theoretical value
but also transfer it to the practical
world we um yeah we said
that we wanted to found a startup and we all know each other
since a really young age so for me it was quite clear already during my or during
the beginning of my master that we wanted to do this and even though i still
went into these other fields like strategy consulting to gain experience that
would then help me by with finding a startup.
Did you have any pivotal experiences or like mentors that shaped your entrepreneurial journey?
I wouldn't say that there's necessarily one
person in particular but rather many people
that kind of inspired me or whatever great sparing
so starting in in finland
when i had teachers that yeah brought me
closer to this entrepreneurship area and
but then also people i've worked with especially in
consulting there were a lot of people that yeah
that taught me a lot when it comes to soft skills but
also finding one's own way um and
also then that's always super valuable other startup
founders they most likely will you
know yeah most likely you will find someone that had the same problem already
but it's not one specific person for me i see i see um what unique skills or
perspectives from your past have proven most valuable in building Genovi?
Well, I'd say it definitely helps if you don't mind working a lot.
Joking. I mean, this is definitely a thing, but I would say it will come from
loan if you're passionate about something.
But other than this, I think acquiring
a structured way of working is super
important as you have so many different topics coming to
your table and maintaining an overview not
getting overwhelmed sometimes and then prioritizing i would say this is key
and um there's something where a structured way of working definitely helps
and where my time and consulting again helped a lot i'd say because this is
when i started to to yeah kind of get to know this way of working.
Because in general I did many things in parallel, so that was kind of necessary
then and it still helps me.
And other than this, maybe naivety, because otherwise I don't think we would
be there where we are right now if we would have approached everything too rationally, to be honest.
So many people say it's
it's resilience that is super important and i agree but
for me resilience is kind of
positively framed and i
think there's also this part of naivety that is rather a thing that you can't
really control but still helps a lot if you if you have this kind of character
I actually do believe it's one of the few essential pillars of entrepreneurship
to be really, really structured.
That helps you out a lot because you get thrown things to your head like from
your competition, most of the time from your clients, from your investors,
from the authorities, maybe tax or other regulations.
And you always have to put it into a structured way to see what are the priorities,
how can you work through it.
Plus, you're also, for me personally, not only a to-do list did the trick,
but when I kind of transponded the to-do list to times assigned to do my to-dos on a daily,
weekly, and monthly basis on my calendar.
That was like the most important step for me to get StartUpRate.io on the ground.
Yeah, I definitely agree. And I think you can perfectly relate to this as you
have different projects going on. So yeah, 100% agree.
Let's talk about your startup, Adir.
What problem are you trying to solve when you started Dianovi and how did you
identify this opportunity? Yeah.
So the problem we're addressing is basically that in the emergency room,
so that's where we operate or our software operates in the emergency room that
you have basically two worlds that collide.
So on the one side, you have really young, inexperienced junior doctors that
have to work with complex cases from all kinds of backgrounds and disciplines.
And in this stressful setting of the emergency room, that means it really creates
a fertile ground for mistakes, so to say.
And then in numbers, that means millions of error diagnosis and false treatments
that we have in Germany alone every year. And then, of course,
this leads also to high costs for the hospitals, but also for the healthcare system in general.
And here we're talking about billions in costs. And as already touched before,
the basic idea of delivering value to the healthcare system by utilizing the
technological knowledge we had,
that came up during university or during our studies.
And then we started talking to many stakeholders, so hospitals,
physicians, insurance companies.
So the idea got more and more concrete.
And from beginning on, actually, we worked super close with hospitals and they
helped a lot with the product development and also already in the ideation phase.
And that's how Dianovey basically was created then.
Also, in an emergency room, talking here about an EMT with several years of
experience, you always have the problem that you have incomplete data.
So you don't know from the blood type of the patient to their story,
medications, allergies, whatever important stuff that you don't have.
And as you said, even if the doctor is very experienced, they cannot foresee everything.
So there's a lot of information you need at very short notice there.
Was this your original idea or did it evolve over time?
That's actually a good question. It evolved. It definitely evolved.
So we started more and that's also why we changed our name at some point.
So we started more as a symptom checker basically.
So we tried to prevent people going to the emergency room when they had, let's say,
minor issues, because that's a big thing as well, that we have overcrowding
in the emergency rooms and there would be also alternative treatment options.
And we first focused more on this kind of problem.
And then out of several reasons, we pivoted and focused more on the professional side.
So really helping the physician and providing them with support during their daily work.
And this was basically how we evolved from more patient-centric software to
a more physician-centric software, I'd say.
Ah, I see. I see. Can you like wrap up in like one sentence?
What's your final goal, your mission, your vision for Yanovi?
And by the way, how did you come up with the name? It sounds like more like
an Italian food brand. To me at least, sorry.
That's funny. I never heard this.
I see it. Now, actually, we changed the name because of a lot of feedback from
customers and other people because they were kind of confused when we still had the name MySymto.
So this was a name before, which kind of obviously relates to a symptom checker.
They started asking, you're not a symptom checker, so why would you use that name?
And then we decided during the incorporation that we will change the name to
Dianove, which is basically a composition of the word diagnosis and the word novum.
And basically reflects our vision of enabling the best medical care possible
by utilizing technological brokers we see, especially with AI,
which is core for our software.
And as I said, we're trying to enable physicians to really deliver the best
treatment possible by giving them personalized decision support and the power
of the modern technology data analytics, basically. Mm-hmm.
I see. Let me take a little second to thank our sponsor.
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them, Tech Startups Germany.
That out of the way, let's talk about Dinovi, about the startup itself.
Can you get a little bit more specific how your tool is used, where it is today?
And then we're talking a little bit about KPIs, clients, use piece and so on and so forth.
Yeah. So you basically can think of Dinovi as a digital assistant to the physician
working in the emergency room.
So it's a software running on their whatever device they would have and basically
accompanies them throughout the whole process where the patient is in the emergency room.
So it helps them to make the right decisions from a medical perspective.
So for example, what is the most likely diagnose?
Which treatments should I do as a doctor to find out or to figure out which
diagnose is the most likely one? and then also how to pursue with the patient.
And then, so this is basically a medical side and
then also from an economic perspective as
hospitals to have this reimbursement system in the emergency room and we help
the hospital to get the most out of this reimbursement as well because this
was a thing that basically a lot of decision support tools neglect when providing decision support.
It's mostly medical and we combine it because this makes it basically a no-brainer
for hospitals to adapt the software also from an economic perspective.
I see plus a very likely limitation of potential liabilities because otherwise
the insurance companies would not back it from my understanding.
I see a CC, smart thing. We're talking on Startup Radio a lot about success.
What KPI, what measures do you use to define success for you as a startup?
Yeah as i'd say that we are still quite
in an early phase so we we finished our pilot projects
last year and um so two months
ago basically and we'll we'll launch the
software in a couple of weeks um from a commercial point
of view uh it's it's all about the customer so
we have a we have a great sales pipeline and now we're converting them one by
one and also got the first written agreements which basically is the main kpi
for us right now and then we also looked at the sales cycles don't get too long
because this is something that is sometimes kind of challenging,
with hospitals so we try to reduce these these sales cycles to a minimum and
yeah and then of course we have a lot of software development kpis to ensure
stable operations and safe development which is quite important in our field.
Yeah, I would assume so. By the way, when you talked about on whatever device
the physician uses, what came to my mind right from the start was something like a tablet.
Is this the primary device they are using your software on?
Yes and no. It depends a bit on the hospital. So some are super great in digitization.
Others lag behind really really
far so you will find every different setup
possible but most of the time it's it's
a computer um in the room and then
you also have the more digitized ones where they use tablets
but actually for us or for the software it
doesn't matter we would run on all these devices i see
and and then could you also like share uh
it's is it seamless that the physician could
access from the computer in the emergency room and then
later um when the patient is uh when.
The patient is in the bed visit the bed with the tablet
does it work like that yeah exactly and that's that's
a really good and important question for us because this
seamless integration also the integration with other
software solutions already in the hospital it's super
important for the actual adoption of the of
the software yes has
to be um you you said last year
we're talking uh late 2024 if i'm
not wrong you achieved the milestone finishing the
pilot projects as you already said you already
signed how many contracts so right
now we have three written agreements and
the fourth is coming right now so yeah as I said day by day we try to onboard
more hospitals so the pipeline gets gets bigger and bigger and we have to start
like getting them or converting them into actually paying customers.
I see. That's pretty good. I think most of my question now we already discussed.
So your primary customer are the hospitals because they can increase revenue
and increase safety with your software for the emergency room.
I was wondering, your primary clients are the hospitals or are you in closer
with insurance companies that then volunteer the hospitals to use your software?
It's definitely the hospitals, but insurance companies will maybe get more and
more important in the future.
But usually in the healthcare system, it makes sense to first have a couple
of customers, in our case hospitals,
where you can show what the solution is capable of and then,
again, approach the insurance companies.
And then we also have another important stakeholder for us, which are these
other software providers that already have their solutions in the hospitals.
And when we partner with them, because we need this from a technical perspective
anyways, then we also get access to their existing hospital network.
So those are important partners for us as well.
I see, I see. So very interesting construction there.
You kind of hinted already at it.
So there are other emergency room softwares out there.
But my understanding is your USP right now that is working is basically that
you tell the hospitals and insurance companies, we're not only here to limit
your liability to get better treatment for the patients.
We are also here to help you maximize revenue on this, like build all the stuff you're actually doing.
We may tell the audience out there that there has been a dying of hospitals
here in Germany due to insufficient revenue.
A lot of insolvencies, including a hospital here not far from me.
They keep operating, but the funding of hospitals is right now a pretty hot topic in Germany,
especially like the smaller ones in the smaller places where you would need
to try for quite some time until you get to a bigger.
Better funded hospital.
Yeah, that's definitely correct.
And that's exactly why we're doing this to support from medical and economic
perspective, because, of course, every hospital would want to improve their
medical performance and their treatments for the patient.
But at some point they are limited because of their financial resources.
And as you said, if they have an incentive to buy your solution also from an
economic perspective, then it gets a no-brainer.
You increase quality and you increase revenue. Why wouldn't you do it?
So that's exactly what we're targeting at.
In terms of the apprechnung system, so the billing system of the hospital,
I've heard it can be quite a bit complicated and arcane, is that true?
And how did you get through all the stuff there?
Yeah, that's a huge thing and it's really specific and also kind of strange
and you can talk to many, many people that work inside this area for quite some
time and you will still find,
Parts where not everybody knows what's happening, actually.
So it's really complicated. And it also took us quite a while to understand
how this basically works.
And we did a lot of talking with different people.
So as I already said in the beginning, it helps a lot if you talk to different
stakeholders, meaning hospitals, meaning insurance companies,
meaning the reimbursement companies, meaning people that consult these companies and hospitals.
So to get different viewpoints on this, to understand these reimbursement processes.
And that's basically how we did
it. You can, of course, also look out for webinars and stuff like this.
We still do it because there's also a lot of changes going on and politics tries
to change quite some things also.
So it's always important to stay up to date on this topic as well.
Where we may also add for our audience that we're currently in an election cycle,
less than a month from today, there will be new elections.
There will be, as it looks right now, a new government. There will be new policies,
which may or may not hit you in 2025,
but 26, 27 for sure, because there'll be some areas where they need to fix the healthcare system.
Are you actually kind of actively looking at the policies the different parties have.
Yeah, I mean, definitely also from a private perspective, I do.
But yeah, then also when it comes to the company, of course, it's interesting.
But it's also, of course, they have the ideas of how to do the healthcare system
or maybe how to restructure it.
But in the end, we will have to see what really happens. And it will always take such a long time.
So we don't really try to estimate what will happen. and already adapt,
we will do what we're doing right now and focus on where we're strong at,
and then we'll see what changes.
We definitely have our eyes on this, so we don't get overwhelmed by it or something,
but it will, and I'm pretty sure about this, it will take quite some time until
changes will be implemented.
But, yeah, we're cautious because it's not to neglect.
Mm-hmm um for everybody
who's listening to this on the day of publication uh
by the way go out and vote and also
for all the people who forgot it tomorrow is valentine's
day still time to get some flowers so i have to get this out um even though
um one third of our audience is women i'm not sure what the usual uh present
for women is on valentine's day is supposed to be but that's a completely different topic.
Let's do a little bit of an ad break. And then when we come back,
we'll talk about the outlook, funding growth, and talent perspective.
Welcome back to our interview with Elias from Dinovi.
We are here in an interview supported by Heson Trade & Invest.
And we are in the last third of our interview here.
I'm talking now a little bit outlook with Elias, the co-founder of Dinov.
Always, there is a question on venture capital when we are at this stage.
Are you currently raising or planning to raise funding?
And what's your primary focus for the investment?
So right now, we just closed a convertible loan with a couple of investors.
So that's what we've done recently. But we're definitely looking to raise soon
again as we have this growth. and we need to get this funded somehow.
So we're always open to have these conversations, build up relationships,
and then in a couple of months, race the next round.
You're talking about a couple of months. What are the expectations for the Inovie
in the next 12 to 18 months? Yeah.
So basically, as we said, we're entering the market right now.
From a commercial perspective so establish ourselves in the emergency room the
emergency room won't be the end of the road for us that's for sure um but i
think for the next 12 months it's it's fair to say that we want to ensure successful
utilization then also of the software,
and then see if if our thesis hold ground and then as i said we order the emergency room won't be the
end of the road for us so we will ship more features and look
to also expand maybe to the outpatient sector
are you
actively hiring or uh
you you're planning to hire i i mean you just closed
the convertible note you did some fight tracing uh congratulations by
the way can you give us a rough idea of how much you raised uh
yeah i can't name the exact number because it's also not uh
not like all over yet but uh
we will be uh below the 500 000 uh somewhere there and yes with this money we
we are actively hiring right now and this will also uh not change probably for
the next couple of months as we need to get the personal resources for.
Watch out buzzword scale the software and scale the the company so uh yeah for
the next month you can expect us to hire a couple of more people especially from a technical part,
the software developers we're growing the team now they're especially in this
area for everybody who'd like to learn more we'll also link the career website
of you guys down here in the So you already did some startup buzzword bingo. We checked the scaling.
How do you plan to scale and kind of adapt?
We just talked about the upcoming election, the changes of policies.
How do you keep track of that and how you're looking to manage all of that?
Yeah. So for now, and maybe the important thing for us is the technological perspective as well.
There's a lot of happening there as well you can read
the new ai news basically every day or twice
a day and so we will
still try to continuously improve our
models utilize the newest advancement and see
that we can utilize also the data that are
generated then through our software and then
as you mentioned also the the more
policies that come and
the regulatory field which is super important in
healthcare and also there we will stay stay ahead of these changes there and
then yeah of course the the customers put them in the center they are the most
important ones for us see how the hospitals and the the processes change because
there will be changes also, again,
due to the government, and then see how we can best support physicians working
there under these circumstances.
I see. So you already hinted at incorporating AI into your tool.
I hope you've seen the episode we had on the AI Act here.
I have two final questions. So the first final question is, what is your long-term
vision for the startup and what impact do you hope to make on the industry?
So, yeah, as I said, the end of the journey isn't there with the emergency room.
We will explore further areas.
So long term vision really means that we provide this decision support not only
for physicians in the emergency room, but then also for physicians in the outpatient
area and also in other parts of the hospital.
So the software basically provides a comprehensive solution that transforms
the complex healthcare data into concrete, actionable insights.
And that's something you don't only need in the emergency room,
but everywhere in healthcare.
So the focus is on really gaining a deep understanding of patient care and then
pave the way for personalized medicine because that's what we are actually doing.
And that's then basically also the impact. So, of course, we want to see less
mistakes made and then also better access to health care.
As you mentioned already, hospitals are shutting down, especially on the more rural side.
And we want to still have patients having a great access to health care,
which also comes with digital solutions, we guess at least.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, I see. By the way, buzzword check for actionable insights.
And the final, final question, because this is from HessenTradenInvest sponsored.
You have now the unique opportunity to address the
decision maker in the States and
ask for improvement uh
give some praise and something you always
want to address to them yeah so if
i would have one wish as well then this
would definitely go to the regulatory side
because i i understand and everybody understands that it's an important topic
especially when you operate with sensible data and everything but sometimes
it's it's really annoying how long processes take and it's especially for startups
that the advantage is that they can operate quite fast.
And then you have these super long regulatory cycles and processes that kind of slow you down.
So this is not optimal. And I know it's hard, but maybe there could be a bit
of an improvement, which then would also come from a more political side.
But we also have to definitely thank them a lot.
I hasn't traded invest and we we
got a great network here in in Hessen
we always have great support when it
comes to any topics we can ask for contacts
might be from a regulatory point might be
from a financing point it might be from the
incorporation we got a lot of help there as well so and there's
definitely a strong network and strong support for startups here in Hessen great
I also want to slide in at the very end I was actually sitting in the audience
when at the federal government digital gipfel late last year you won a founding award for startups.
For handed out here by the federal government congratulations to that and I
think that's a really nice closing message here thanks a lot we were really
proud of winning this and as you mentioned this is not,
a bad title to receive definitely,
great Elias thank you very much hope to have you back in a few years talking
about your successes there I hope so too thanks for having me Joe it was my
pleasure goodbye bye bye.
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