Berlin-based VC firm Point Nine Capital is leading a $1 million (USD) round in DocPlanner.com, a booking and rating service for doctors and dentists which is looking to build upon its early success in Eastern Europe.
The startup’s online appointment system sees physicians open their calendars to patients, who can then compare availability and book available time slots. They can also see other patients’ reviews of individual doctors and dentists.
Through its network of websites, DocPlanner currently has 2.5 million unique users per month with 1.7 million of those coming in its home country of Poland and another 600,000 in Slovakia, covering 430,000 medical professionals in total. It wants to use the new capital for further international expansion – five additional countries are set to be added in the near future – as well as improve its product.
Point Nine is being joined in the round by local health tech fund RTA Ventures and London-based Piton Capital, as well as local angels. Piton and Point Nine are also co-investors in DaWanda, which recently expanded into Poland.
Mariusz Gralewski, previously known for helping create Poland’s biggest professional networking site, GoldenLine, is co-founder and CEO at Warsaw-based DocPlanner, and said the company’s aim is to make finding and booking a doctor or dentist a much simpler task, while enabling a more efficient patient flow for medical professionals: “I believe that DocPlanner’s approach to making online appointments with doctors will become a global standard.”
Dubbed the ‘ZocDoc of Eastern Europe,’ DocPlanner.com was launched in 2010 in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with Russia and Germany being added this year – although the latter two do not as yet make up a significant part of the company’s userbase. In Germany, which is generally considered to have one of the highest ratios of doctors to population in the world, the ability of physicians to fill up empty slots could prove crucial – although there is competition in the space in platforms such as Arztbuchen24 and samedi.
Point Nine, which was formed in 2011 as a spin off of Team Europe Ventures, has invested in companies including Brainly, Delivery Hero, Mister Spex and madvertise.