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Amsterdam-based Siilo has raised €9.5m to expand its product offering and build out its network in Europe.
Today (30 July), Dutch start-up Siilo announced that it has raised €9.5m in Series A funding. The round was led by German VC firm Heal Capital, with participation from Philips Health Technology Venture Fund and EQT Ventures.
Siilo has developed a communication platform for health and care professionals. The company was founded in 2016 by former surgery resident Joost Bruggeman and Arvind Rao.
With his first-hand experience working in healthcare, Bruggeman believed there was a better way to communicate than existing, outdated methods such as fax, paper and landlines. The Siilo team aimed to create a dedicated platform where every healthcare professional can be connected, while also adhering to healthcare compliance regulations.
In March, the Amsterdam-based start-up announced that it would make the crisis management tools on its healthcare communication platform free for healthcare workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, for as long as needed. These tools were previously a premium feature.
During the pandemic, the firm has seen registrations for its platform increase by 309pc.
Funding plans
With the fresh funding, Siilo plans to expand its product offering to better support case-based collaboration and knowledge-sharing on its platform, as well as increase network growth across Europe, with a specific focus on Ireland, the UK, Benelux, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The start-up also plans to hire talent in areas such as product development and customer success. Dr Christian Weiss, general partner at Heal Capital, said that the start-up has a “strong vision” in making healthcare professionals “fall in love” with Siilo’s communication tool. He described the messenger product as a “true game changer.”
Bruggeman, who is CEO of the company, added: “We believe there is a massive opportunity for healthcare to operate as a collaborative network.
“We started by connecting professionals treating individual patients, but during the acute phase of the pandemic, we’ve also been able to play a critical role in connecting different levels of healthcare to facilitate faster decision-making and information-sharing. With Siilo, frontline care workers, public health officials and everyone in between are able to practice medicine together.”
According to Siilo, its platform is used by more than 250,000 healthcare professionals, with more than 20m messages exchanged each month in more than 16,500 clinical chat groups or directly between users.
The company’s subscription service for hospitals and care organisations, Siilo Connect, is used in East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam and Berlin-based Charité.
