Scaling Europe
00:10:17 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:10:17] S0: And how else is your job changing? You've been through this transformational journey. How how many employees do you have now? [00:10:23] S1: So we're now about 230 or so. [00:10:25] S0: And the company's, what, three years old? [00:10:28] S1: Yeah. We turned three years now just recently. So, I mean, three years ago, we were three cofounders sitting in my apartment and living room, and then two years ago, 10 people. One year ago, 60 people, and now 230 people and being in 14 different countries across Europe. And I think, like, for me as a person, my core drive is very much feeling that I get to learn, that I get to develop, do novel things. For this journey, I'm getting that on, like, steroids. And every few months, we jump to, like, a new phase of the company that then brings, like, novel types of challenges and novel types of learnings, and I just get so much energy and excitement from this. [00:11:05] S0: And what are you focusing on now that maybe you weren't focusing on two years ago? Is it more about hiring and fundraising where it used to be more about sales and product? Like, how how has your world changed?
00:11:05 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:11:05] S0: And what are you focusing on now that maybe you weren't focusing on two years ago? Is it more about hiring and fundraising where it used to be more about sales and product? Like, how how has your world changed? [00:11:15] S1: Yeah. So here, also, I have I have two cofounders, Oliver, that's CTO, so he leads the product and tech, and then Oscar, that's chief commercial officer, so he leads the sort of go to market side. And then I lead the central functions, but I'm also involved in, like, the highest prior initiatives across as a bit of a bridge there. And I think for me now, I really strive to see what are the most important initiatives that we are driving as a company right now, and how can I, like, involve myself and apply the, like, founder pressure and founder mentality to drive those as quickly as possible and make those a success? And how can I use sort of the? Just history and experience that I have now with the company within this field to be able to know, okay, like, how do we navigate this? How do we unblock it as quickly as possible? And then try to do this, like, across the most important commercial deals, but also in, the most important product releases and so on. [00:12:08] S0: And where where are your team based at the moment? Do you have local teams in each of the markets that you're operating in now?
00:12:08 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:12:08] S0: And where where are your team based at the moment? Do you have local teams in each of the markets that you're operating in now? [00:12:14] S1: Yeah. So we have our headquarters in Stockholm, and we centralize basically everything we can to Stockholm, but then we localize go to markets because we realize that health care is a local game, and we can't really sell to a German hospital out of Sweden without speaking German. Like, you need to be there in person and visit the clinicians and onboard them and so on. So we've expanded and now have... Yeah. Like, in London where you're sitting, we're roughly 30 people. In The Netherlands, we're 25. In Germany and France, we're 15 each. We have in, like, Italy and Spain and all of the other Nordic countries, in the Baltics, in Portugal, and so on. So now we're starting to have this foundation in place across really the key geos across Europe, and now it's about how do we scale this as quickly as possible. [00:12:56] S0: And, you know, you're betting very big on Europe. Europe is where you wanna focus. It's also interesting. One of the most European cap tables I think I've seen. Was that intentional? Were you like... You know, I'd understand that... Yeah. Tell me a bit about the focus on Europe.
00:13:11 · Lukas Saari
[00:13:11] S1: Yeah. I mean, we've been very intentional about focusing on Europe and also structuring our cap table along those lines as a result of it. And for me, firstly, I just believe that European clinicians also deserve access to the best tools and tools that are built here and not built in The US and then retrofitted for European setting, but don't really work as well. And then also, if we're looking at our space, I very much believe that Europe is more lucrative than The US. And it's firstly due to the competition in The US. Like, US is more mature. It's more of a red ocean and so on. So it's very different environment there. But secondly, when you're looking at the fragmentation. And here, we choose to view the complexities and the fragmentation of Europe as a strength and a moat rather than something that we try to shy away from. And the fact that it's so fragmented, I mean, means when you get started, that it's more difficult because there's so many different systems to integrate with and so on. But it also means that in The US, you have two systems, Epic and Cerner on the medical record system side that dominate and have 70% of the markets. So you become incredibly dependent on this, and they have thousands of engineers. They have their own AI agendas, and they have a lot of power for potentially locking you out. Europe, even the top 15 medical record system vendors comprise of less than 70% of the market. And these vendors are typically these like Frankenstein's monsters after acquisition journeys over the years that have dozens of systems beneath them. So that means that in Europe, the system landscape is so small, essentially, that they are, like, subscale for developing these types of functionalities in house, and then are rather wanting to partner with someone like us for how they can bring this to their customers quicker. So this also means that we have a much better environment on just incumbent, the system landscape side for the mid to long term.
00:15:02 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:15:02] S0: Are are there American companies who are trying to expand into Europe and compete with you? [00:15:09] S1: Yeah. So I've been surprised by the fact that there's literally no... None of our US competitors have even tried to go into Europe. There's one company called OpenEvidence that is like a sort of Deca corn type of company now that does, like, chat GPT clinical decision support for clinicians. They expanded into Europe, but actually completely shuts down their operations in Europe a few months ago. So, like, if you go on to their website in Europe, you just get a, like, not available in Europe due to regulations type of page. So this being because they didn't adhere to the, like, regulations and certifications required in Europe. [00:15:44] S0: That's so interesting. So you really... That... Yeah. It's... I hope... When you look at some of the most successful companies who have come out of Europe, it's actually a lot of the time these companies have been able to use fragmentation as that moat, whether it's Revolut and cross border currency or Wise or even like eleven Labs with all the language stuff. It's like the the the inherent traits to Europe can often breed real amazing innovation.
00:15:44 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:15:44] S0: That's so interesting. So you really... That... Yeah. It's... I hope... When you look at some of the most successful companies who have come out of Europe, it's actually a lot of the time these companies have been able to use fragmentation as that moat, whether it's Revolut and cross border currency or Wise or even like eleven Labs with all the language stuff. It's like the the the inherent traits to Europe can often breed real amazing innovation. [00:16:06] S1: Yeah. And I think especially now with AI, they... It breaks down borders a lot. So, I mean, large language models are magical, so it works across languages. Right? Because you can now write code much quicker. It's also easier to handle the fragmentation and do a lots of integrations and so on. So, like many of the challenges that you had before are not as significant anymore, which also makes the case much more credible for like a European play now. And I mean, if you look in health care historically, there's almost zero success examples of companies in the health tech domain that have managed to scale across multiple countries in Europe. So also very proud and excited to be able to show that this is something that is possible also in Europe and hopefully be an inspiration for other European founders that you don't necessarily need to go directly to The US. There is also viability in going for other markets.