"Communication is key in every organisation. Siilo has a strong vision in making healthcare professionals fall in love with their intuitive solution to promote it in a bottom-up approach," said Dr. Christian Weiss, General Partner at Heal Capital. "Siilo's messenger can be a true game changer in digitising the healthcare sector."
Siilo was founded in 2016 by former surgery resident Joost Bruggeman (CEO) and Arvind Rao (CFO). Having experienced the fragmented healthcare system and outdated methods of communication - such as fax, pagers, and landlines - firsthand, Joost recognised the need for a secure, easy-to-use messaging app designed specifically for healthcare professionals. He and the Siilo team are on a mission to create a dedicated platform where every healthcare professional can be connected while also adhering to healthcare compliance regulations such as GDPR, ISO-27001, HIPAA, NHS standards, and more. The impact of connecting on one single platform can be measured in lives saved, quality of life improved, and healthcare costs reduced.
Joost Bruggeman, co-founder and CEO at Siilo said: "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.
"We're only just starting to uncover the different ways technology can facilitate collaboration and simplify workflows in healthcare, and we're excited to increase our product offering and member network with the support of our newest investors, who bring a wealth of insights and experience around scaling innovative healthcare solutions."
The Siilo Messenger app is free for individuals and teams to coordinate patient care, expand their professional network, and significantly reduce time-to-decision by exchanging best practices. Siilo Connect is the company's subscription service for hospitals, care organisations, and medical associations where administrators can facilitate staff-wide collaboration on patient cases, discuss internal policies, and consult with external specialists, all while maintaining organisational compliance.
Siilo is now the largest medical network in Europe with more than a quarter of a million healthcare professionals. Each month, more than 20 million messages are exchanged in more than 16,500 clinical chat groups or directly between users. Siilo Connect is used for secure departmental collaboration within renowned academic institutions such as East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam and Berlin-based Charité.
As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the Siilo team launched a free COVID-19 crisis management offering that enables Siilo members to:
- broadcast time-sensitive updates to minimise risk of in-hospital transmission
- create peer networks of national infectious disease and intensive care specialists to share real-time insights in the treatment of their COVID-19 patients
- establish regional networks to address available capacity, resource allocation, and dissemination of treatment protocols.
"Maintaining open and up-to-date lines of communication is crucial with hospitals dealing with a growing number of patients, which is why our team is using Siilo to communicate safely, effectively and efficiently to discuss and share information and pictures while remaining compliant.
"We've seen the benefits of WhatsApp in these situations, but of course it comes with the major caveat of confidentiality. Even at this time of crisis, we need to ensure we are communicating as safely and securely as possible - we owe it to our patients. "To do this, my advice to healthcare organisations is to download Siilo. You shouldn’t think twice about it," mentuioned Dr Darren Lui, Spinal and Orthopaedic Surgeon at St George's Hospital
Demand for Siilo’s messaging services surged globally as healthcare professionals turned to technology to improve communication and collaboration amid the health crisis:
- Registrations increased by 309%
- Number of messages sent increased by 208%
- Media uploads increased by 50%
- Monthly active groups increased by 145%
- Number of video calls increased by 270% and duration of the calls increased by 460%
"Siilo's making serious progress cracking one of the hardest nuts in healthcare: getting great tech into the hands of healthcare professionals. The product actually gets used and users become part of an active global network, bringing a higher quality of care to patients," says Ashley Lundström from EQT Ventures.
"Philips aims to team up with and invest in promising start-up companies that can deliver novel approaches to addressing clinical needs. Digital technologies like Siilo can pave the way for secure, convenient exchanges of knowledge, and help drive the digital transformation in healthcare," says Rich Wilmot, Head of Philips Health Technology Ventures.
About Siilo
Siilo is a secure medical collaboration app designed to help healthcare professionals and teams collaborate on patient care and share knowledge in a compliant and flexible way. Through encrypted chat based messaging and voice and video calling, healthcare professionals can connect with their immediate colleagues, locally healthcare providers, and regionally with medical associations. Today, Siilo is the largest medical network in Europe with over a quarter million members. While the Siilo Messenger app is free for individuals to download, Siilo also offers organisation management and departmental collaboration tools used within renowned hospitals like St George’s University NHS Hospital and East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust. For more information visit www.siilo.com.
About Heal Capital
Heal Capital is a leading European venture capital fund with a target volume of 100 million euros. The fund invests in technology-enabled healthcare champions at series A stage, that are actively driving the innovation of healthcare. Heal Capital provides capital, know-how, and market access through leading private healthcare insurers as fund investors. Additionally, Heartbeat Labs and Flying Health are invested as anchor investors, complementing the Heal Capital team with expertise in building and scaling digital health companies. The fund has been launched under the umbrella of the Association of the German private healthcare insurers in 2019 and is led by Eckhardt Weber and Dr. Christian Weiß as managing partners.
About Philips Health Technology Venture Fund
Philips Health Technology Venture Fund is Philips' business-agnostic fund that invests in, and partners with, promising healthcare informatics and health technology services start-up companies to accelerate their growth and extend their reach, and jointly drive the digital transformation in healthcare. As a leading health technology company, Philips is focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. The company leverages its global R&D programs, targeted acquisitions and partnerships to develop integrated solutions helping healthcare providers deliver on the Quadruple Aim: better health outcomes, a better experience for patients and staff, and lower cost of care.
About EQT Ventures
EQT Ventures is a multi-stage VC fund that partners with the most ambitious and boldest founders in Europe and the US. The fund is based in Luxembourg and has investment advisors stationed in Stockholm, Amsterdam, London, San Francisco, Berlin and Paris. Fuelled by some of Europe’s most experienced company builders and scalers, EQT Ventures helps the next generation of entrepreneurs with the capital and hands on support needed to build global winners.