Healthtech Investments: 3 Investors Share Exclusive Insights on Trends, Strategies & Forecasts

1. Lucas Mittelmeier, Heal Capital: "Regulatory changes can create massive markets."
2. Kai Langohr, Isartal Ventures & Isartal Health Media: "Telemedicine and the care market are key topics."
3. Dorothée Marie-Louise Doepfer, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité: "We find bioprinting, digital twins and decision support systems exciting."
4. The Key Takeaways You need to know

Lucas actually works in Berlin. But when our conversation begins, he is sitting in a hotel room in Finland. The investor is currently attending SLUSH, a start-up and tech event in Helsinki. His first impression after scanning the list of young companies: "It feels like there are only two camps at the moment: mental health and women's health." His employer Heal Capital invests in companies "that improve the healthcare system and have digital components at their core: Our focus is on software."

Absolutely. A striking number of start-ups are dedicated to female health and topics such as menopause, endometriosis or childbirth. The other large group focuses on mental health, often on employer models that offer tools for employee health. These topics are more dominant than others on SLUSH - despite the skepticism of many investors, as few unicorns have emerged to date.

Historically, both fields have achieved low returns. This is partly due to the fact that less money flows into the healthcare system. For example, there is unfortunately still no treatment or insurance reimbursement for certain illnesses that could earn money. As a result, hardly any large companies have emerged in the European sector - although many would like to.

State pension systems are under pressure, in England or Germany, for example, the health insurance funds: contributions are rising, people are ill for longer. Then there is the debate about pensions, another part of the social system. Everything is imploding. And now, at the beginning of the year, England is increasingly allowing private service providers to become part of the National Health Service (NHS) - because the system itself can no longer cope. From a funding perspective, it will be interesting to see whether large budgets open up.

Automation of repetitive tasks using AI, for example practice assistants who answer patients' questions. Note-taking tools that automatically create doctors' reports or shift planning tools that organize substitutes at short notice.

For example, AI Drug Discovery, AI as a researcher of new drugs, received billions in investment but often failed in clinical trials. Not everything that says AI on it is gold. Some AI tools are interchangeable features - but not companies. In addition, almost anyone can build something quickly today thanks to open source models, which is why we are not investing here.

Revenue sharing is effective, for example with radiologists: an AI tool analyzes images as an additional service. If the patient pays, the start-up and the radiologist share the revenue. A similar example is AI-supported heart failure monitoring: patients use smartwatches and scales, while doctors can analyze and bill their data.

I can't give any details publicly yet - but that will come soon! In my experience, you need a good nose for a subject area. And then a founding team that is agile enough to maneuver through it. When a regulatory change comes along, it can be absurdly big. Because the influence of regulation on this market is huge.

With digital health applications (DIGA), we were unsure from the outset how this could scale. Unfortunately, it's even more difficult than we thought. I think the industry is only just discovering how to make money with it. For me, this is the most difficult child in the health tech sector.