Mid-year recap: Milestones as a health technology startup
This year has gone incredibly fast and the first half of the year is already over. So, this is a good point to reflect on what has happened so far for Triumf, the progress we have made but also to project forward and see what the next six months will bring us.
In the beginning of the year, we set many goals to help us monitor progress. One of them was to improve external communication and promote our health app globally. With that in mind, our first visit was in London for Deloitte Most Innovative Health Start-Up event. I pitched our solution in front of 100 innovators and experts and learned more about the health technology landscape in the UK. At the same time, our CEO Kadri gave a seminar and introduced our health app in Tartu at the Startup Day. This year we’ve also been to China, Ireland, Lithuania, Sweden, Germany and Singapore, which has given us an excellent opportunity to network internationally, understand more about different markets and seek for international costumers. For example, recently we took part in Korea-Finland Startup Summit in Helsinki and we’re keen to find out more about the start-up world in Korea. Importantly, we’ve received such encouraging feedback and traction from VCs and experts from the industry thanks to these visits.
Within the team we’ve also achieved some pretty awesome milestones and it's been a busy half a year graduating universities. More specifically, our CEO Kadri defended her PhD and became a post-doctoral researcher. With that, Triumf Health also became a research institution! Additionally, our team member Riin Tark defended her masters thesis titled "The effect of Triumf mobile health game on psychological well-being and health related quality of life among paediatric cancer patients: a pilot study" and graduated from the University of Tartu, Institute of Psychology. And for myself, I'm celebrating a first class honours for my research project in health science, and will be graduating University of Bath next week. Seems like at Triumf we really enjoy being nerdy!
At the same time, we’ve also actively focussed on finding investment and applying for several grants. In May, we also took part in the European Health Catapult competition in Sweden and won the Digital Health category. Now, we are invited to London in Autumn to pitch in the semi-finals for a grant, so fingers crossed! We’re also very excited to have launched a new website, which was also one of our goals in the beginning of the year.
So, what’s next?
There’s still so much to do and so many interesting events to visit. And that’s what makes working in a start-up so enjoyable. Most importantly, we are kicking off multi-national randomised clinical trials in three hospitals: National University Hospital in Singapore, The new Children’s Hospital in Helsinki and Tartu University Hospital accross two different disease groups - diabetes and surgical care. This is a significant milestone for us - we’re so happy to be able to have our solution tested by the patients and understand how valuable the feedback will be for us for creating a safe and effective health app for children. And our manuscript that is based on the pilot study among pediatric cancer patients also got accepted to the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR).
We also hope to finalise the negotiations with The Health Insurance Fund to have our solution listed as the first prescribable digital medicine in Estonia. In October, Kadri will be giving a presentation at Play Day that takes place in Estonia. Moreover, in November, Kadri will fly to Singapore with Nordic Health Delegation and Riin will be attending Aitana Congress- 5th International Congress of Clinical and Health Psychology on Children and Adolescents.
But for sure, there is still a lot more to come and we look forward to making the most of the second half of the year. So stay tuned for further updates to follow our progress!