KRY Files for IPO: Europe's Leading Digital Healthcare Provider Raises $252M Across Four Rounds

Recently, VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) learned that telemedicine company KRY has completed a $159 million Series C financing round. The round was led by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, with participation from existing investors Accel, PlanIndex Ventures, and Creandum. The funds will be used to expand into new markets in Europe, further develop existing products, and recruit new talent for the company.

KRY, established in 2015, is an online video healthcare service provider specializing in video consultations. For conditions that do not require various tests or sampling, such as rashes, eczema, and fever, KRY’s physicians can provide online diagnoses and recommendations. KRY is the only EU-certified, app-based online video healthcare service provider in Sweden.

Online video medical services perfectly embody the public’s ideal vision of telemedicine. With just a click via the internet, patients can receive disease diagnosis and treatment without leaving home.

Johannes Schildt, Founder and CEO of KRY

Johannes Schildt, Founder and CEO of KRY, earned a Master’s degree in Economics from Stockholm University. He has successfully founded or co-founded five companies, launching his first venture, the wallet design firm Wowallets, while still pursuing his master’s degree. Later, Johannes successfully launched Stardoll’s first official Facebook game, which reached one million monthly unique users within three months of its release.

In 2015, Johannes foresaw KRY’s immense potential to transform how patients access healthcare services during its early stages. By integrating new technologies with leading medical expertise, KRY established a platform for the digitalization of healthcare.

Since its establishment in 2015, KRY has completed four rounds of financing, with a total amount reaching $252 million.

KRY's Financing History

KRY’s latest financing round took place in January 2020, when the company closed a $159 million Series C round led by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, a leading European digital health investor. The proceeds were primarily used to expand KRY’s market share in Europe, while continuing to develop existing products and recruit top talent.

In June 2018, KRY completed a $66 million Series B financing round, which was primarily used to expand its product market in the United Kingdom and France. The round was led by existing investor Index Ventures, with participation from other existing investors.

In June 2017, KRY completed a $22.66 million Series A financing round to accelerate its expansion in the European market. Prior to this, KRY had already provided online video medical services to over 100,000 users in Sweden, Norway, and Spain. The round was led by Accel, with participation from existing investors.

In August 2016, KRY completed a $6.91 million angel funding round, led by Index Ventures and Creandum, with participation from existing investors. The proceeds were primarily used to expand KRY’s international markets beyond Sweden. From its establishment in 2015 to the completion of the angel round, KRY conducted pilot operations in Sweden, providing online video medical services to over 30,000 users. The service received widespread acclaim, laying a solid foundation for KRY’s international expansion.

KRY spares no effort in providing patients with timely, accurate, and high-quality medical services, offering 24/7 online video consultations as well as expert appointments for adult and pediatric conditions. To date, KRY has provided video consultation services to over 1 million patients, achieving a patient satisfaction rate of 4.8/5.0, with 94% of patients reporting that the medical care received was beneficial to their condition.

In addition, KRY places a high priority on security and privacy in its online medical services, ensuring the protection of patients’ medical and payment information. The KRY consultation service adopts transparent pricing, empowering patients to manage their healthcare expenditures. For each online consultation, patients are charged a base fee of 200 Swiss francs, with an additional 100 Swiss francs for appointments with psychologists.

Compared with traditional medical institutions, telemedicine does not require facilities and equipment like those in physical clinics, and the associated costs are lower.

KRY’s online consultation service offers a three-step process that is simple to operate and convenient to use:

KRY Online Video Consultation Process

Firstly,Download the KRY App, complete personal medical condition information and bank card details, and provide pathological test results required for medical consultations;

ThenSchedule a Consultation with a Specialist, engage in a one-on-one online video consultation to obtain medical services such as prescriptions, relevant pathological tests, and recommendations for doctors or hospitals, with a duration of approximately 20–30 minutes;

Finally,KRY Exclusive Follow-up, conduct follow-up tracking of the medical services received by patients, coordinate workflows among relevant physicians and nurses, ensure the completeness and integrity of patient visit records, and enhance patients’ post-consultation experience.

The Keys to KRY’s Success: An Esteemed Team of Physicians and a Secure Core Network FrameworkAn esteemed team of professional physicians provides patients with essential consultation information, while a secure, high-privacy core network framework ensures seamless communication between patients and physicians.

For online consultation services, accurate diagnosis is a fundamental requirement and the basis for patients to seek medical care with confidence. To this end, KRY has established a team of registered professional physicians to provide online consultation services within their respective specialties, offering precise online consultations for a total of 50 diseases across five categories.

KRY Online Consultation: Disease Types

In addition to common physical and mental health issues, KRY also provides family relationship counseling services. This service offers family advice, support, and assistance to children, adolescents, and their families, delivered by KRY’s child psychologists.

In high-conflict family relationships, not only do children require psychological counseling, but first-time parents also need emotional support. Families in need can opt for individual video consultations with KRY for either the child or the parents to address family issues, or they can choose joint online sessions where both parties participate simultaneously to resolve problems together.

For a long time, data management and patient privacy security have been hot topics in the field of telemedicine. Telemedicine companies use data in real time to create added value and safety for patients and caregivers, while also increasing patients' access to and control over their own data.

KRY addresses the security of patient and physician health data through a two-pronged approach. First, KRY collaborates with engineers to ensure that the systems it builds, operates, and manages maintain robust technical security. While KRY develops its IT infrastructure in-house, it partners with reputable and established vendors, such as Amazon and ProReNata, for outsourced components, thereby ensuring a high level of network security.

Secondly, establish an effective security incident management process to manage health information, analyze and evaluate health data collected by the software, including details such as how these data are stored and who has access to them. For example, extend primary care physicians’ appointment slots and schedule consecutive backup consultations; conduct continuous diary reviews and provide real-time feedback to patients; implement standardized care protocols (psychology); publish new treatment guidelines (medicine and psychology), among other measures, thereby standardizing KRY’s health information management.

To provide users with accessible online medical services, KRY has continuously upgraded its video products. In April 2019, KRY acquired Hello Shim, a manufacturer of automated chatbots, laying the technological foundation for handling text-based online medical consultations.

KRY has consistently provided seamless medical services to patients. This seamlessness refers not only to its 24/7 availability but also extends to its offline physical therapy clinics.

In 2018, KRY began opening offline physical therapy clinics in Sweden to provide real-time medical services to patients in need, thereby expanding the range of diseases diagnosed and treated by KRY and broadening its user base.

Moreover, in response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Europe’s healthcare systems, KRY recently launched a free video consultation platform to enable all professional healthcare providers across Europe to conduct safe and effective video communications with their patients.

These measures indicate that KRY is gradually expanding its share of the online video consultation market in Europe, while the substantial financing recently completed also demonstrates strong investor confidence in KRY’s market prospects. With ample funding, a mature business model, a solid user base, and excellent market reputation, KRY is poised for rapid growth in the European market in the near future.