As health 2.0 increasingly becomes a bustling space for entrepreneurs, there’s a particular area that looks like it’s about to heat up – booking medical appointments online. A number of players are already competing in this space in Europe, and the premise is more or less the same – they all offer an online platform that lets users find, read reviews and book appointments with healthcare professionals.
Founded in 2010, DocPlanner is one such Polish startup that aims to make medical appointments easier. With only $4 million in funding to date from Point Nine Capital, Piton Capital and RTAventures — which is not much financing considering the size of the team (100 in three countries) — the company managed to expand to 25 countries across the globe. Every local operation has its own website; in Europe, the service is available in Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Romania among others.
With only $4 million in funding to date from Point Nine Capital, Piton Capital and RTAventures, the company managed to expand to 25 countries across the globe.In the interview with Tech.eu, DocPlanner CEO of DocPlanner, Mariusz Gralewski explained how his company stacks up with competitors and what are the plans for the future:
“From the outside, there are no huge differences between our site and the features offered by competitor websites… There are, however, a number of differences behind the scenes in the way we do business (such as traffic development and approach to selling) but we wouldn’t want to disclose our secrets.”
When it comes to plans for the future, in the next couple of months, the company will be focusing on integrating recently acquired Turkish rival Eniyihekim into the “DocPlanner family,” and also expand to other markets.
“We are considering Western Europe and Latin America selectively. We will continue to grow primarily through organic means,” Gralewski added. “However, we will acquire opportunistically where we see a strong local traffic player in a market where we have little chance of catching up and building a leading position organically.”
Meanwhile, U.S.-based companies such as ZocDoc are also eyeing international expansion and may at one point decide to acquire similar services; heck, they may go for DocPlanner itself. One thing is certain – interesting times are ahead.