Tonic App, a digital health startup that makes the day-to-day of physicians simpler by aggregating all the resources they need in a single platform, has just closed a Series A investment round of €10.85 million. With this capital, the startup aims to become the first medical platform with a presence in the five largest European healthcare markets: Spain, Italy, and France, where it already operates, followed by the UK and Germany, which the scaleup plans to enter over the next 24 months.
The venture capital companies BlueCrow Capital and Iberis Capital co-led Tonic App’s third investment round. Its first investors, the Luxembourgish Vesalius Biocapital III, and the Portuguese Armilar Venture Partners and Portugal Ventures also participated. The Series A investment round was closed with the additional investment Shilling VC and the French strategic investor FSNB Health & Care.
The amount raised represents a critical growth driver for Tonic App, to consolidate its presence in the markets where it already operates, expand into new geographies, and amplify the team towards a fast, yet sustained business growth. The company will hire senior talent for its sales team and will further invest in operations. Célia Brás, former COO of Adclick, was recently hired as Chief-of-Staff. A substantial investment is also being made in research and development (R&D), focusing on generative artificial intelligence. The company was the first in Europe to launch a genAI-powered virtual assistant for physicians, already used by 25,900 medical doctors, and expects to certify it as a medical device until September. In Q2, Tonic App will launch Tonic Scribe, a tool that allows automated transcription and summarisation of clinical notes.
Daniela Seixas, medical doctor, co-founder and CEO of Tonic App, explained: “Obtaining venture capital investment became more difficult. The size and timing of this round gives us an advantage over our existing competitors, which we will seize. Soon, we will be operating in the five largest healthcare markets in Europe, which is a huge opportunity for our pharma clients.”
Since its inception in 2016, Tonic App has been on a mission to make clinical practice even more practical. By solving the fragmentation of tools and knowledge physicians need nowadays for their daily practice, Tonic App has been facilitating their work. The development of its platform, both mobile and web, the continuous enhancement of the product offering, with an ever increasing range of medical tools and useful contents, medical device certification and CME accredited e-library, and, most recently the launch of its AI virtual assistant, are just a few of the milestones reached by the company, whose platform is currently used by more than 140,000 doctors in 4 countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy and France). In 2023 alone, Tonic App acquired 20,000 new physicians for its platform and saw its foreign revenue grow by 79%. In Italy, its fastest growing market, the company has seen a revenue growth of 772%.
António Mello Campello, co-founder of BlueCrow Capital, commented: “The growing interest in the technology sector and the subset of AI has led us to search for a company where technology and AI are used in full harmony with humans and for their benefit. This is the objective of Tonic App: to develop a highly useful product for physicians and their patients. It has proven to be an investment opportunity in a sector and technology of great importance for human development.”
João Henriques, co-founder of Iberis Capital, added: “Tonic App has been demonstrating remarkable capacity for penetration and engagement within the populations of doctors in the countries where it operates. This has sustained increasing engagement of these professionals with the platform, which increasingly meets their needs.We believe that the timing is right for the expansion of the platform into new markets and to support the company’s commitment to promoting innovation by investing in the development of new features, content, and medical tools to better meet the needs of the healthcare ecosystem. We are very proud to reinforce our involvement with the company and continue to support this path.”
François Sarkozy, founder & CEO of FSNB Health & Care, highlighted: “We are happy to invest in Tonic App, which progress I have been following for years. It can be a game changer, not only through simplifying physicians’ daily activities, but also through helping them maximising their efficiency at the moment where time of physician is more limited.”
Teresa Fiúza, vice-president of Portugal Ventures, addsed: “It is with great pride that Portugal Ventures has continued to follow the success of Tonic App since December 2016, having always participated in its investment rounds. This new financial boost will allow the company, led by Daniela Seixas, to strengthen its team, extend its international presence to more demanding markets and expand its AI skills. With these goals, Tonic App aims to position itself as a leading player in Europe in the field of digital health. Portugal Ventures believed in Tonic App from the outset because it’s an innovative project, with a differentiated team, and has the main ingredients for success.”
