Healthtech company Oska Health has closed an €11 million seed financing round. The round is led by Capricorn Partners and SwissHealth Ventures. Additional investors include BMH, LBBW Venture Capital, Revent, GoHub Ventures and Aurum Impact. The financing underscores growing confidence in a hybrid care model that has been sustainably improving support for chronically ill patients for more than three years.
Oska Health: Human care, extended by AI
A large share of care for chronically ill patients does not take place in the doctor’s office, but in everyday life. This is precisely where the greatest gaps in care emerge – particularly among multimorbid patient groups living with multiple chronic conditions such as chronic kidney disease (CKD), diabetes and hypertension. Around 50% of chronically ill patients do not take their medication correctly, and approximately 80% fail to sustainably change their lifestyle. This not only reduces quality of life but also drives costs: roughly 70% of total healthcare expenditures in Germany are attributable to chronically ill patients – and the trend is rising.
Already 1 out of 10 Europeans suffers from chronic kidney disease (CKD) and in Germany alone, there are 9 million adults affected.
Through continuous, personal support between doctor visits, Oska Health ensures that patients successfully implement necessary behavioral changes in a sustainable way. Trained health coaches provide guideline-based, evidence-driven support to help patients translate physicians’ recommendations into everyday practice.
“Our healthcare system is strong in diagnostics, but weak in everyday support,” says Niklas Best, CEO and co-founder of Oska Health. “We combine personal care with AI to close precisely this gap. In this way, we help patients to actually implement therapies – and thus relieve the burden on doctors and health insurance companies alike. This finally makes high-quality care for the chronically ill scalable.”
Health insurance companies confirm effectiveness, international investors see potential
The model has proven itself in practice: more than 20 statutory health insurance funds already partner with Oska Health. The service is free of charge for insured members. Health insurers benefit from improved care for cost-intensive high-risk patients and from the prospect of reduced complication and hospitalization rates.
“Oska Health enables us to strengthen care where it has previously been least structured. Our insured members benefit from the program in terms of their health,” says Dr. Nele Tempelhof, physician in the medical competence team at KKH Kaufmännische Krankenkasse. “The combination of personal support and digital scalability is particularly relevant for the care of chronically ill patients.”
Physicians also report noticeable relief in their daily practice. Oska Health integrates seamlessly without creating extra workload and supports the implementation of medical recommendations in patients’ everyday lives. “Many therapies fail not because of medicine, but because of implementation at home,” says Dr. Sylvius von Borries, general practitioner. “Oska Health closes precisely this gap, reduces the burden on medical staff and improves our patients’ adherence.”
Investors see Oska Health as representative of a new generation of outcome-driven care models. “We invest specifically in solutions with measurable impact on healthcare delivery,” says Antoine D'Hollander, Investment Director at Belgian VC fund Capricorn Partners. “Oska Health combines medical evidence, continuous support and scalability in a highly compelling way.”
“As the venture capital arm of a health insurer, we know how critical the time between doctor visits is for treatment success,” adds Markus Rommel, Principal at SwissHealth Ventures. “Oska Health addresses exactly this lever and creates positive change on the patient side. We are confident that the model has strong relevance beyond the German market.”
German VC-firm Revent and their General Partner Otto Birnbaum, experienced early-stage investors in healthtech ventures among others, draw a similar picture. “We have backed Oska Health for over two years now and are thrilled to see their growth rate of >8x, proving what a significant issue they are addressing. We are convinced that their AI-enabled coaching will help not only the millions of people suffering from chronic disease, but our strained health system as a whole.”
Oska Health was founded in 2022 in Frankfurt am Main and operates in the German healthcare market as a certified medical device. With the new capital, the company plans to expand its existing programs and further grow its network of health insurance and physician partners.
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