TeleSkin secures funding

Serbian TeleSkin won Europe’s largest startup competition, Next Step Challenge, last year and the 1st prize of $300,000. Now they are accelerating their growth with a venture investment of $900,000. TeleSkin has developed the app skinScan, which will revolutionize the prevention of skin cancer. The solution is based on the team’s more than 30 years of work experience within skin cancer. skinScan works by letting the user take a picture of a mole or skin lesion and analyzes it as ‘typical’ or ‘atypical’. It is also possible to send the picture to an affiliated specialist for an expert opinion. The team behind TeleSkin consists of IT specialists and doctors. The app is expected to be launched during the first quarter of 2015. The primary investment comes from SEED Capital, while Welfare Tech Invest and a Serbian investor, Aleksandar Obradovic, accounts for a small proportion of the total investment of $900,000. “Denmark is the country in the world which has the third highest incidence of melanoma, so it makes sense for us to develop the product here. The investment will be used to get our product in the market and strengthen our team here in Denmark. Right now we are looking for the right CMO, which can accelerate our marketing activities. The plan is that we will launch in Denmark first and then subsequently Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. Last year was fantastic for us, but I think that this year will be even more exciting with some interesting challenges ahead. We would not have it any other way,” says co-founder and CTO, Zeljko Ratkaj. “We look forward to following TeleSkin that with the combination of biomedical engineering and digital technology can tackle a growing global problem,” says Søren Lottrup, partner in Accelerace which is the management company for Welfare Tech Invest, and continues: “Through our accelerator program, TeleSkin has taken some major steps forward with a skilled and dedicated team with more than 30 years of experience within the field of skin cancer.” Mobile Health gaining ground Mobile Health is a broad term that covers everything from wellness to more traditional medical practice supported by mobile devices. While increasing healthcare costs is a growing problem, Mobile Health can help to remedy this in a new way using the smartphone, which previously only could be performed at the doctor or hospital. “Mobile Health is one of the trends that are clearly on our radar. Mobile Health makes consumers able to monitor their own health and the “empowerment” of patients can help to drive new changes on the innovation of the healthcare system. We have many years of experience with both Medtech and IT investments and since this is in a tense field between the two, so I am sure that we are the perfect match for getting TeleSkin off the ground. TeleSkin have a really strong team and can help to revolutionize the prevention of skin cancer in the future, “says Investment Director of SEED Capital, Jón Ingi Benediktsson.]]>