Stanislas Niox-Chateau, Ivan Schneider and Jessy Bernal, the founders of DoctoLib.
French doctor booking startup DoctoLib has raised $20 million (18 million euros) to expand its platform out to the rest of Europe. Accel led the round with participation from existing investors, including Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, cofounder and CEO of PriceMinister, and Bertrand Jelensperger, co-founder and CEO of LaFourchette. It brings the company's total funding to $26 million (23 million euros).
DoctoLib's software-as-a-service offering serves 5,000 doctors and 100 clinics across 80 specialties and serves 2 million patients per month. Now, with the new infusion of cash, the company hopes to serve doctors across Europe.
“It’s been exciting for us to see the appetite for our product in France over the last 18 months," CEO and co-founder Stanislas Niox-Chateau said in a statement. "This investment will help us continue to capitalize on our strong growth as we take our solution to new countries across Europe.”
The company offers a range of value propositions to potential clients including a 30 percent cost reduction in booking management costs, a 75 percent decrease in no shows, and new patient outreach to the tune of 20 new patients per doctor per month. The reduction in no-shows is accomplished with email and text reminders and by making it easy for patients to cancel via those same channels.
Appointment booking has proved to be a lucrative digital health area in the United States as well, at least in terms of investment dollars. ZocDoc, which raised $130 million this summer, is one of the most-funded companies in the space. It's been in operation since 2007 and has recently started looking into other tools that will sit atop its existing offering. Also in the United States, Aetna’s popular iTriage app offers appointment booking for select providers.
This Spring another appointment booking service, called MyTime, raised $9 million. MyTime does not help patients book appointments with primary care physicians, but it helps users book appointments for a number of other health-related services. Users can book appointments for a dental exam and cleaning, teeth whitening, acupuncture, chiropractic treatment, eye exam, and physical therapy.
Internationally, there are appointment booking startups all over the world currently raising funds. Closest to France is Warsaw, Poland-based DocPlanner, which raised $10 million in May and serves 25 countries, including markets in Europe, South America, and Asia. Lybrate is building a similar offering in India and Singapore’s DocDoc recently received $8.6 million.
