Why we partner with Kaia Health

Being grateful users of a Kaia app ourselves, we knew from the very beginning that co-founders Konstantin Mehl and Manuel Thurner were onto something big and meaningful. Kaia tackles a pressing problem in healthcare where millions of people affected by chronic back pain either do not have access to or cannot afford the gold standard of care. With lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic a fully flexible, self-managed and self-controlled therapy training became even more relevant, accelerating the adoption of digital therapeutics in the general public.

Developing an effective digital therapeutic is not trivial nor easy and requires a rare set of interdisciplinary skills and experience. In Munich, Germany, Kaia was able to gather an exceptional team of computer vision experts and medical researchers to develop a powerful, multimodular therapy that works without human intervention using mobile devices. Kaia’s approach unites AI, computer vision and an existing mobile infrastructure and will save billions in healthcare costs and support millions of patients living a healthier and happier life. As of today, Kaia’s solution is already reimbursable for more than 60 million patients in Europe and is the preferred choice of insurance providers for millions of US-citizens.

This combination of a truly groundbreaking product that challenges the status quo of healthcare and an exceptional team from the European DACH region is exactly what we are looking for in a team and company to partner with. We are glad to support the Kaia team changing the global standard of care together with an amazing group of other investors (Idinvest (now Eurazeo), Optum Ventures, Rory McIllory, Balderton Capital, Heartcore Capital) who share our vision bringing a new breed of digital therapeutics to market.

3 reasons why we partner with Kaia Health

Exceptional Team

The Kaia team unites relevant expertise by a diverse and complementary skill set: co-founders Konstantin Mehl and Manuel Thurner successfully built and exited foodora in the past and have now built an amazing team with deep knowledge in clinical study design, product development, AI and visual computing. The Kaia team has a size of 70 FTEs with an office in NYC in addition to the Munich HQ.

Groundbreaking Product

Kaia brings effective back pain therapy to our homes by empowering and motivating patients to self-manage and control their condition. Their IP allows for superior 2D motion tracking with smartphones (proprietary computer vision algorithms) combined with the largest (video) data set of chronic pain patients. Kaia is currently running 10 new clinical trials. Kaia’s route-to-market is direct to consumer via app-stores as well as B2B2C through pharma and insurances.

Digital Therapeutics

Digital therapeutics is one of the largest trends in healthcare globally and will be worth $9.64 billion by 2026. More than 3 billion people suffer from chronic diseases and the global chronic pain treatment market has generated revenues of $69 billion in 2017. With 70k monthly active users, Kaia is one of the largest digital therapeutics companies globally. Kaia has entered partnerships with 12 international players: channel partnerships with Virgin Pulse and Accolade and customer partnerships with 20 large US employers (including Fortune 500 companies) to combat MSK (musculoskeletal) pain. Kaia’s chronic pain therapy is already reimbursable for 60 million patients in Europe. Konstantin has just relocated to the United States to ensure that Kaia is best able to serve this fastest growing market segment of digital therapeutics.