Doctena, a leading medical booking platform in Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland, has just acquired Doxter, the leading player in Germany. This acquisition happens only a few months after Doctena acquired the number 2 player in Belgium. By entering the German market, Doctena, active in five countries now, is consolidating its position as leading pan-European medical booking platform. Doctena was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Luxembourg.
Patrick Kersten, CEO of Doctena stated: “Thanks to its fast growth and localized strategy, Doctena has shifted from a startup to a strongly-performing international company in only three years. We see Doctena as a family of national champions: we are the leader in every market in which we are active, a goal that we have for every future market.”
According to the young company, every minute a patient creates an account on Doctena, and every 30 seconds they book an appointment. Last year, Doctena completed a €4.5 million funding round, which was shortly followed by the acquisition of Docbook in Belgium five months ago to consolidate its leader position. Now, Doctena is making another play to be the biggest online medical Pan-European booking player by acquiring Germany’s Doxter.
Doxter was founded in 2012 by five co-founders. One of them, Dr. Med. Ron Lehnert, will continue to run the company as CEO Doctena Germany. With its acquisition, Doctena now manages the bookings for 4,000 European doctors.
The expansion strategy of Doctena rests on a localized approach and the synergy of combining the strengths of various players, which has assured them continued growth.
“For us, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” explains Patrick Kersten, CEO of Doctena. For example, bookings and active patients increased threefold in May 2016 following Doctena’s first acquisition in Belgium. In 2017, Doctena plans to continue its expansion by launching in other European markets.
Doctena’s strategy seems to pay off, Patrick Kersten, CEO of Doctena explains: “There is a high demand for online medical booking, 77 % of patients indicate that they prefer to book, change or cancel appointments online according to a survey done by Accenture. Our experience in dealing with different regulatory bodies and being able to rapidly acquire new markets has proven a considerable advantage over competitors.”
“Our mission is to reduce the workload for doctors so that they can better focus on treating patients. Patients can easily book an appointment, at any time,“ says Patrick Kersten. He further explains: “Our localized approach allows us to offer the best service to all doctors and customers, adapted to their needs and markets. We have thus gained the trust of the healthcare community.”
