• The health­ca­re start­up will use its tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­ti­se and inno­va­ti­ve ope­ra­ting model to estab­lish hybrid pri­ma­ry care prac­ti­ces in under­ser­ved regi­ons.
  • Lil­li­an Care’s soft­ware plat­form sup­ports data-dri­­ven ali­gnment of pro­ces­ses and cli­ni­cal decis­i­ons, redu­ces admi­nis­tra­ti­ve over­head in prac­ti­ces, impro­ves working con­di­ti­ons and enables cost savings for insu­r­ers.
  • The €2.4m pre-seed round was led by Nina Capi­tal, the spe­cia­list health­ca­re and tech­no­lo­gy VC, and joi­n­ed by Aes­cu­vest, Cae­sar Ven­tures, OHA BTG, Calm­storm along­side angel inves­tors inclu­ding Björn von Sie­mens, Wie­land Som­mer, Inga Ber­gen and Fre­d­rik Debong. Sepa­ra­te­ly, Lil­li­an Care also secu­red a fur­ther €2.4m com­mit­ment from sel­ec­ted inves­tors for their even­tu­al seed stage fun­ding.

Mon­day 23 Octo­ber 2023 Hei­del­berg, Ger­ma­ny – Lil­li­an Care, a health­ca­re tech­no­lo­gy com­pa­ny co-foun­­ded by seri­al entre­pre­neurs and veterans of the Ger­man health­ca­re indus­try, today announ­ced it has rai­sed €2.4 Mil­li­on in pre-seed fun­ding, with a pro­jec­ted com­mit­ment of an addi­tio­nal €2.4m at seed stage, brin­ging total fun­ding com­mit­ments to €5m. The pre-seed invest­ment will go towards ensu­ring pri­ma­ry care deli­very in under­ser­ved are­as among a gro­wing shorta­ge of gene­ral prac­ti­tio­ners.

The new invest­ment was led by Nina Capi­tal, a spe­cia­li­zed ven­ture capi­tal firm with deep exper­ti­se at the inter­sec­tion of health­ca­re and tech­no­lo­gy. Inves­tors who also par­ti­ci­pa­ted in the round include Aes­cu­vest, Cae­sar Ven­tures, OHA BTG, Calm­storm and pro­fes­sio­nal angels and suc­cessful foun­ders such as Björn von Sie­mens, Wie­land Som­mer, Inga Ber­gen and Fre­d­rik Debong.

Lil­li­an Care’s plat­form enables nur­ses to per­form as the first point of phy­si­cal cont­act for out­pa­ti­ents with health com­plaints, per­forming 60% of all tre­at­ments with super­vi­si­on and sup­port deli­ver­ed digi­tal­ly by doc­tors. This approach ensu­res that doc­tors are freed up to focus their time and atten­ti­on on more com­plex cases. Sup­port­ed by the plat­for­m’s data-dri­­ven ali­gnment of pro­ces­ses and cli­ni­cal decis­i­ons, Lil­li­an Care pro­vi­des qua­li­ty medi­cal care, a rein­tro­duc­tion of local health­ca­re to under­ser­ved com­mu­ni­ties whe­re prac­ti­ces have clo­sed, and impro­ved working con­di­ti­ons for medi­cal staff.

This pre-seed fun­ding will see Lil­li­an Care grow its net­work of hybrid prac­ti­ces, tar­ge­ting a mar­ket- lea­ding posi­ti­on by 2030, cemen­ting its repu­ta­ti­on by deli­ve­ring high satis­fac­tion levels for pati­ents, nur­ses and phy­si­ci­ans while secu­ring value-based care con­tracts with health insu­r­ers. The fun­ding comes at a time when c.4,000 pri­ma­ry care phy­si­ci­ans‘ offices are alre­a­dy unoc­cu­p­ied and affec­ted com­mu­ni­ties and citi­zens cle­ar­ly rea­li­ze the rela­ted limi­ta­ti­ons. Stu­dies pre­dict that 11,000 pri­ma­ry care phy­si­ci­an seats will be unfil­led by 2035, which will have serious con­se­quen­ces for Ger­ma­ny, whe­re 40% of all coun­ties are affec­ted by phy­si­ci­an shorta­ges. In respon­se, regu­la­tors and health insu­rance pro­vi­ders have intro­du­ced new initia­ti­ves crea­ting strong tail­winds for the suc­cess of Lil­li­an Care’s inno­va­ti­ve care model and net­work.

“We are buil­ding a net­work of hybrid pri­ma­ry care prac­ti­ces sup­port­ed by a com­pre­hen­si­ve tech­no­lo­gy stack that enables fast set­up, stream­li­ned work­flows for inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry care teams and tele­me­di­ci­ne tre­at­ments,“ said Linus Drop, foun­der and chief exe­cu­ti­ve offi­cer of Lil­li­an Care. „In Ger­ma­ny, the shorta­ge of pri­ma­ry care phy­si­ci­ans is a con­cern, espe­ci­al­ly in rural are­as. To ensu­re medi­cal care, we offer phy­si­ci­ans and nur­ses an inno­va­ti­ve care model that takes into account the needs of modern pro­fes­sio­nal care teams and takes inspi­ra­ti­on from the les­sons lear­ned by health­ca­re sys­tems inter­na­tio­nal­ly.”

“The Lil­li­an Care model repres­ents a dis­rup­ti­ve inno­va­ti­on that aims to invol­ve nur­ses in the manage­ment of chro­nic and elder­ly pati­ents, initi­al­ly focu­sing on rural are­as and small cities, but with the poten­ti­al for broa­der appli­ca­ti­on within the health­ca­re sys­tem. Such models are incre­asing­ly reco­gni­zed as essen­ti­al for ensu­ring the long-term sus­taina­bi­li­ty of health­ca­re sys­tems,” said Marc Subi­rats, a vete­ran of the tele­he­alth indus­try and Gene­ral Part­ner at Nina Capi­tal. “Lillian’s adapt­a­ti­on to the Ger­man situa­ti­on is the best we have seen to pro­vi­de clo­­se-to-home gene­ral prac­ti­ce ser­vices for an incre­asing­ly under­ser­ved and age­ing socie­ty.”

International context

Nur­ses deli­ve­ring medi­cal tre­at­ment to impro­ve doc­tor avai­la­bi­li­ty and speed up pati­ent tre­at­ment is an approach that has been used in the USA and Cana­da sin­ce the 1960s. Sin­ce the start of the mill­en­ni­um this has gai­ned momen­tum as the Net­her­lands, Aus­tra­lia, Ire­land, New Zea­land and Fin­land have adopted this health­ca­re approach, aut­ho­ri­sing nur­ses to deli­ver medi­cal tasks in pri­ma­ry care.

Nota­b­ly, Fin­land has a com­pa­ra­ble rural popu­la­ti­on, wher­eby 30 out of every 50 pati­ent visits is to a nur­se, rather than a doc­tor, incur­ring signi­fi­cant­ly lower health­ca­re expen­dit­u­re (8.9% of GDP in Fin­land, com­pared to 11.1% in Ger­ma­ny).

Support

The Lil­li­an Care lea­der­ship team has won influ­en­ti­al sup­port­ers. One of them, Ulrich Wei­geldt, hono­ra­ry chair­man of the Fami­ly Phy­si­ci­ans Asso­cia­ti­on, is con­vin­ced: „The Lil­li­an Care con­cept can inspi­re young phy­si­ci­ans to work as essen­ti­al pri­ma­ry care phy­si­ci­ans in under­ser­ved regi­ons becau­se they are reli­e­ved of admi­nis­tra­ti­ve tasks, work from home on a dai­ly basis and team­work cha­rac­te­ri­zes the col­la­bo­ra­ti­on.“

 

About Lil­li­an Care:
Lil­li­an Care is an inno­va­ti­ve health­ca­re com­pa­ny that estab­lishes hybrid prac­ti­ces for gene­ral medi­ci­ne throug­hout Ger­ma­ny, thus ensu­ring high-qua­­li­­ty medi­cal tre­at­ment clo­se to home for ever­yo­ne despi­te the incre­asing shorta­ge of doc­tors. The com­pa­ny was foun­ded by Linus Drop, Dr. Flo­ri­an Fuhr­mann, and Mar­kus Lies­mann, who have many years of expe­ri­ence in various are­as of Ger­man and inter­na­tio­nal health­ca­re. The name Lil­li­an Care is inspi­red by Lil­li­an Wald, who is con­side­red the foun­der of Ame­ri­can com­mu­ni­ty care. With her hands-on and pro­­blem-sol­­ving approach, she had a gre­at influence on the deve­lo­p­ment of health­ca­re.

About Nina Capi­tal:
Nina Capi­tal is a spe­cia­li­zed ven­ture capi­tal firm inves­t­ing exclu­si­ve­ly at the inter­sec­tion of health­ca­re and tech­no­lo­gy. With an inter­na­tio­nal out­look from their home base in Euro­pe, Nina Capi­tal seeds and sup­ports need-dri­­ven foun­ders com­mit­ted to impro­ving health­ca­re with the help of tech­no­lo­gy.

Media Cont­act:
Linus Drop
Lil­li­an Care GmbH