Exit accelerated Kaiku Health’s growth

Founded in 2012, Finnish healthtech company Kaiku Health received EUR 4.4 million in growth financing from Tesi and the Swiss company Debiopharm in 2018. Since spring 2020, the company has been part of the Swedish Elekta group.

The intervening two years testify to the success of the exit.

Meaningful work attracts top talent

Shortly after the exit, Elekta built a Software Center of Excellence around Kaiku Health. That has almost tripled the number of people the company employs – currently over 100. Kaiku staff are responsible both for further developing Kaiku Health’s previous products and contributing to Elekta’s new software solutions.

“We build patient monitoring solutions for Elekta’s software portfolio that are ideally suited to Elekta’s radiotherapy solutions,” says Lauri Sippola, CEO of Elekta’s entity in Finland and of Kaiku Health.

Kaiku employees get to create the best products in the industry alongside top talent. Sippola emphasises that this makes it easier to recruit.

“Recruitment is also positively influenced by the fact that our work is genuinely meaningful, because we improve people’s health and quality of life with our software.”

A hundredfold more customer potential

Joining Elekta has increased Kaiku Health’s potential customer base. Prior to the exit, Kaiku Health’s customers numbered some 40 hospitals. Through Elekta’s network, Kaiku Health can now make its products available to over 4,000 hospital patients.

With the backing of Elekta’s global sales and support network, Kaiku Health has been adopted by many hospitals around the world, including in the USA, Argentina and Australia.

“We find it extremely rewarding that the software we’ve developed over the past ten years genuinely helps patients worldwide,” comments Sippola enthusiastically.

Growth targets are high: Kaiku Health software will be used in five years’ time by twenty percent of the patients in Elekta’s client hospitals. This means hundreds of thousands of cancer patients, compared to a few tens of thousands before the company’s exit.

A successful union

Kaiku Health joining forces with Elekta has progressed smoothly, with no clash in corporate cultures. The transition was made easier by their cooperation prior to the exit.

“Our core team has remained unchanged and our personnel have increased sharply, both facts that testify to the success of the acquisition.”

Encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship is one of Elekta’s values. The company also has 50 years’ experience in corporate acquisitions. Elekta saw Kaiku Health’s agile and innovative approach as a welcome addition to its product mix.

An exit must be carefully analysed

Elekta’s key objective is to strengthen its software Center of Excellence located in Finland. For Kaiku Health, expanding cooperation with global pharmaceutical companies is an important goal.

“We plan to announce a series of partnerships with the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies later this year. We have already announced major collaborative projects for instance with Novartis and MSD.”

Sippola is firmly convinced that the exit was the right solution for the company. He points out, though, that such a step needs careful and thorough consideration.

 “You must always weigh your options, and not be forced into a decision. We had several good options, and Elekta was the best.”

Tesi (Finnish Industry Investment Ltd) is a state-owned investment company that wants to raise Finland to the front ranks of transformative economic growth by investing in funds and directly in companies. We invest profitably and responsibly, together with co-investors, to create the world’s new success stories. Our investments under management total 2.4 billion euros. www.tesi.fi | @TesiFII