Doctolib Joins Unicorn Club with 1300 Healthcare Institutions on Board, Files for IPO

“The concept of ‘online medical appointment booking’ has become increasingly familiar in recent years. Internet-based healthcare applications and informatics products—such as online registration, digital appointment scheduling, telemedicine consultations, and e-prescribing services—have gradually entered the public eye. However, the monetization pathways for healthcare informatics products remain unclear, which has to some extent constrained their development.”

In this regard, the French healthcare startup Doctolib has enjoyed smooth sailing. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Paris, France, Doctolib specializes in providing online appointment scheduling platforms and management software for healthcare professionals.

Currently, Doctolib’s client base covers 1,300 medical institutions and 115,000 healthcare professionals, with its website and mobile application attracting 50 million patient visits per month. In March 2019, Doctolib completed a €150 million Series E financing round, bringing its valuation to $1.13 billion (€1 billion) and earning it unicorn status.

Doctolib's Funding History

Stanislas Niox-Château, CEO and co-founder of Doctolib, was formerly a professional tennis player who won the Paris Tournament six times before a back injury forced him to end his career. In 2006, Stanislas enrolled at HEC Paris, France’s most prestigious business school, to pursue a Master’s degree in Management.

During his studies, he joined HEC Junior Conseil, the junior management consulting firm of HEC Paris, where he led strategic and marketing analyses for 16 projects valued at €170,000. He also gained experience with venture capital and management consulting firms in the United States, Vietnam, and Europe, participating in investment analysis, M&A negotiations, and branch management. After graduating from HEC Paris in 2010, Stanislas co-founded the Otium Capital investment fund alongside Pierre-Edouard Stérin, the founder of Smartbox, serving as a board member. Pierre later became one of the core shareholders in the establishment of Doctolib.

Since then, Stanislas has been involved in investment management for several companies focused on online booking and management platforms, including: La Fourchette, the leading European provider of online and mobile restaurant reservation and management software, which was acquired by TripAdvisor; Weekendesk, a top-ranked Western European online travel agency specializing in short-break bookings; Camping＆co, a French online portal for campsite reservations, which was acquired by Campsy; and Balinea, a leading French online booking platform and management software provider for beauty and wellness centers, which was acquired by Uala. Most of these portfolio companies achieved capital exits through acquisitions, generating substantial returns for Stanislas. For instance, La Fourchette’s valuation increased sixfold over three years, Weekendesk’s valuation doubled within three years, and Balinea’s valuation rose from zero to €2 million within two years.

In 2013, Stanislas co-founded Doctolib with Ivan Schneider and Jessy Bernal. Both Ivan and Jessy are graduates of EPITA (École Pour l'Informatique et les Techniques Avancées), one of France’s leading traditional engineering schools. Having worked together for over a decade, they jointly developed more than ten projects, including Massive Music Quiz, which amassed 8.5 million users before being acquired by the Lov Group. As experts in Ruby on Rails (a web application framework) in France, Ivan and Jessy oversee product, technology, and development at Doctolib. Additionally, Doctolib has established a robust executive management committee and sales team to drive strategic decisions. To date, Doctolib has grown into a team of 1,250 professionals specializing in internet technologies, healthcare, and related fields.

Doctolib Founding Team

In less than two years since its founding, Doctolib successively secured over €5 million in financing. Antoine Freysz, co-founder of Kerala Ventures Fund (one of Doctolib’s founding shareholders), once remarked, “I have invested more in Stanislas than in startups. Doctolib boasts a compelling and complementary team.”

In 2001, the World Health Organization awarded France the title of “World’s Best Healthcare System,” citing its universal health coverage and the fact that France ranks among the top countries globally in terms of population health and longevity. However, the French healthcare system also faces certain challenges: patients must first consult a general practitioner before being referred to a specialist through their GP, with typical wait times for specialist appointments averaging two weeks.

After navigating complex and cumbersome booking procedures, doctors often face the awkward situation of patients who successfully make appointments but fail to show up (no-shows). Doctolib helps physicians improve appointment management efficiency and reduce no-show rates. Stanislas once revealed that the time saved is considerable, with no-show rates dropping by 75%. For patients, Doctolib is a free online service that enables them to conveniently and quickly find and book appointments with doctors across nearly all specialties nearby, including general practitioners, specialists, dentists, physiotherapists, psychotherapists, osteopaths, and podiatrists, as well as with healthcare facilities such as imaging centers (including those in France not located within hospitals), pharmacies, and hospitals.

In fact, appointment scheduling services account for only 5% of Doctolib’s platform business. On the physician side, Doctolib streamlines nearly all administrative tasks, including online scheduling, teleconsultations, and care coordination tools, saving doctors 30%–50% of their time. This allows physicians to focus primarily on assessing patient conditions, rather than spending excessive time on platform-related administrative work. Among these offerings, the online scheduling software is one of the most popular products among healthcare professionals.

Doctors can access and manage their Doctolib schedules anytime, anywhere via web or mobile devices using online scheduling software. They can manage patient appointments with a single click, such as setting available consultation hours, marking absences, or requesting emergency leave. The system simplifies waiting room management by allowing patients to fill in their personal and medical information before consultations, eliminating the need for duplicate entry. It also provides statistics on no-show rates, appointment ratios, and the number of new patients.

On the Doctolib platform, communication between doctors and patients is conducted via SMS or email, offering greater convenience and intelligence. For instance, patients receive immediate email confirmation upon completing an appointment booking. A few days prior to the visit, they also receive appointment reminders via both email and SMS, which include information on the doctor’s practice address. In the event of a cancellation by the doctor, patients are notified via email and invited to reschedule. After issuing a prescription, doctors can encrypt documents through the platform and share them securely with patients. For appointments with wait times exceeding two weeks, doctors can place patients on a waiting list; in case of no-shows, these patients are automatically notified and offered earlier available slots. Regarding historical medical records required for consultations, doctors can provide instructions to patients and send email reminders. For patients with chronic conditions requiring regular or annual screening, doctors can use the platform to arrange timely follow-ups and invite them to book online appointments promptly.

More importantly, the platform enables physician users to easily manage appointment schedules, ensuring timely patient care even during emergencies or physicians’ off-hours. Doctolib significantly simplifies traditional physician appointment solutions, with a monthly fee of €109.

On the patient-facing side, the Doctolib platform allows users to search for and book appointments with specialists for various conditions online, 24/7. As the appointment date approaches, users also receive SMS reminders. This provides them with faster access to healthcare professionals, enables them to obtain relevant information about medical practitioners, enhances their understanding of medical solutions, and offers online health management tools.

As a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) solution, neither patients nor physicians need to install any applications or pay additional fees for software updates. All they need to do is simply connect to Doctolib’s backend platform to manage their appointment scheduling and booking information. The Doctolib platform integrates more than 40 types of medical office management software and hospital information systems, including CALIMED, expertsante, and medimust, enabling real-time synchronization with physicians’ office software and eliminating the need for duplicate data entry.

In fact, Doctolib was not the first mover in the online medical appointment sector, but it successfully surpassed most of its competitors, such as Qare (a telemedicine platform) and Mondocteur (an online doctor booking platform), within a few years to take the industry lead. This achievement is largely attributable to its healthcare provider-centric customer strategy. Persuading healthcare professionals to change their operational workflows is no easy task. Doctolib’s business offerings, which include online appointment booking and scheduling, along with its business model—charging only physicians while allowing patients to register for free—depend heavily on the number of healthcare providers using the platform to achieve monetization.

Therefore, the funding secured by Doctolib was primarily allocated to recruiting sales personnel rather than investing in advertising. For each new physician client, Doctolib provides comprehensive training. Antoine Freysz, one of Doctolib’s founding shareholders, noted, “Doctolib does not merely sell software or products; instead, it partners with physicians to advance toward greater professionalism and streamlined workflows.”

Mondocteur is Doctolib’s largest competitor. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Paris, France, Mondocteur focuses on providing digital tools for healthcare professionals and their patients. In February 2016, Mondocteur completed a €12 million financing round, with investment from the French publicly listed Lagardère Group. Doctolib and Mondocteur were closely matched in their early development stages until May 2016, when Doctolib won the bid issued by AP-HP (Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris) to manage physicians’ scheduling systems, thereby securing a client base comprising 39 hospitals and more than 12,000 doctors. This deal dealt a significant blow to Mondocteur. By 2018, Doctolib had 450 employees, contracted with 45,000 healthcare professionals, achieved 16 million monthly website visits, and charged a monthly fee of €109. During the same period, Mondocteur had only 150 employees, contracted with 10,000 healthcare professionals, recorded 4 million monthly website visits, and charged a monthly fee of €106.80.

In the following years, Doctolib emerged as an industry leader. In July 2018, Doctolib acquired MonDocteur, and the two startups merged to form a company with over 600 employees, resulting in a significant increase in monthly revenue. Doctolib became Europe’s leading online doctor appointment platform, established an office in Berlin, Germany, and attracted additional institutional investors. For instance, in 2019, Doctolib completed a €150 million Series E financing round, led by General Atlantic, with participation from Kernel Investissements, Eurazeo, Bpifrance, Accel, and others.

In the future, Doctolib will continue to allocate the funds raised toward recruiting sales personnel and engineers, expanding its team, with plans to double its workforce within three years. Additionally, in January 2018, Doctolib launched a teleconsultation product that enables physicians to convert numerous informal patient inquiries—including emails, phone calls, and text messages—into billable telephone consultations for which fees can be charged. This teleconsultation model allows patients and physicians to reassess the necessity of in-person appointments, offering greater scheduling flexibility for both parties.

Doctolib’s remote consultation business faces two main hurdles: obtaining compliance with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and securing government approval as the data controller for health information. Meanwhile, the sector holds significant growth potential. The French government planned to complete 500,000 telephone consultations in 2019, reach 1 million in 2020, and achieve 1.3 million in 2021. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for Doctolib.