Reshaping Global Start-Ups in a Rapidly Growing Digital Health Industry: Kilo Health

“Right now, we are one of the fastest-growing health tech companies in Europe”

Kilo Health, a leading digital health and wellness company, provides unparalleled opportunities for entrepreneurial talents and visionaries building digital health products of the future.

The company was founded to design the most engaging and effective digital lifestyle interventions that lead to a healthier life by preventing, managing, or treating various health conditions.

Kilo Health was founded in 2013 and is based in Vilnius, Lithuania, European Union; recently was ranked second among the fastest growing technology companies in Deloitte’s “Technology Fast 50 Central Europe 2021” ranking.

To highlight and further understand what Kilo Health stands for and seeks to explore in this segment, I sat down with Tadas Burgaila who co-founded the company.

Below is an excerpt.

Q. From your perspective, how is the industry you serve currently evolving? And what are the trends in the different categories?

The digital health industry is shifting from wellness management to health management. I believe that this change will transform how we see healthcare in general – how we prevent sickness, treat chronic diseases, how we take care of our elderly parents.

Previously, most of the health technology was a one-way street. You buy a wearable device or download an app, start using it until you eventually lose interest.

Such a standard program doesn’t cover the diverse health needs of a real person – someone with unique health goals, lifestyle preferences, and ailments. The missing element was personalization, using the real-time data of a person to provide you with crafted health programs that adapt easily.

This data-driven approach helps to prevent chronic diseases because most issues such as obesity, Type-2 diabetes, or cardiovascular diseases can be prevented if you track your blood glucose levels and make the right adjustments to your lifestyle.

This is where digital diagnostics come into play, too. In the future, we won’t call a doctor after we notice pains or aches. The doctor will call us. If there are any issues with our bodies, our wearable devices will alert us in advance, and we can stay in the best shape by managing our health data from our mobile phones.

Digital therapeutics helps to prevent issues and stop diseases from progressing instead of trying to deal with the consequences of diagnosing the sickness too late. As a person, you would use your money to enjoy life, not to pay off the hospital bills.

These digital health solutions fit perfectly into the traditional healthcare system. They make sure that fewer people get sick in the first place, and that those who have any health problems can be diagnosed earlier and receive adequate treatment faster.

Q. Where does Kilo Health stand at the moment relative to other participants in the industry?

A couple of years back, we were a team of fewer than 10 people, working in an office in the suburbs. Today, we have 500+ experts, more than four million customers, and a suite of digital health products that help to prevent disease and get healthy for people in almost every country in the world. We don’t have any customers only in  Turkmenistan, North Korea, and Tuvalu.

Right now, we are one of the fastest-growing health tech companies in Europe. Our average annual revenue growth since the start has been 154%. We plan to double our revenues again next year, which already means generating a nine-digit new revenue next year.

Kilo Health covers chronic conditions, digital health and wellness verticals. We have independent companies with products that help people manage Type-2 diabetes, monitor blood pressure, manage mental health, and generally stay healthy. We are working on new products that will help build better habits, fight addiction, and help you take care of your family’s health needs, among other directions.

We have created a health and wellness ecosystem that can help anyone to take the next step on their health journey.

One of the things that make Kilo Health special is our company culture. Freedom, trust, and ambition are common qualities that unite everyone in the company, which makes us one of the most sought-after employers in Lithuania. As we grow and open new offices in other countries, I am pretty sure we will manage to bring the same values with us.

Q. How does Kilo Health accelerate start-ups in a rapidly growing digital health industry?

Over the years, we have built a strong technology, digital marketing, and operational platform that can help to launch new digital health solutions quickly and offer high-quality products. So naturally, on top of building the world’s leading products, we run plenty of other initiatives.

Our co-found initiative helps ambitious entrepreneurs launch new digital health products using our operational and marketing platform. We already have more than 1000 pitches from co-founders that want to build new products with us and are in the final steps of selecting the next batch of finalists from Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam, and Vilnius that will join our platform.

Over the past year, we have also already invested millions of dollars into various health tech startups that bring both expertise and new solutions to chronic health problems.

Finally, we are helping to flourish the new generation of health tech experts with our educational programs in Kilo Academy. This initiative ensures that the knowledge that we gathered over the years is shared across our teams and that we will always have experts that can quickly develop new solutions.

Q. How uniquely does Kilo Health provide unparalleled opportunities for entrepreneurial talents and visionaries to build digital health products of the future?

We came up with a co-found initiative to attract entrepreneurs who want to build health tech startups fast using the advantages of the Kilo Health marketing and technology platform. Basically, it’s a startup incubator that helps to quickly launch new solutions using all the industry knowledge we have gathered over the years.

Around 10% of people that apply for the program already have a business idea. Other entrepreneurs come to us interested in implementing one of the business ideas we have generated internally.

We have tons of new business ideas which are constantly researched and tested by our R&D team. Once an initial business idea passes the R&D phase, we are happy to develop it into a successful product together co-founding a new business with an entrepreneur.

The co-founder becomes our business partner. He/she is then responsible for executing the business strategy, developing and launching the product, building their team. We offer a competitive salary, business development support, our know-how and exciting challenges, all crowned with opportunities to hit a jackpot.

This way a talented person has an opportunity to make a lot more money if the venture is successful, while her/his risks are much lower compared to building a startup on their own.

Q. That’s not all Kilo Health does. What are its other focus areas?

We have multiple business units that run on our platform rather independently. On top, there is always something interesting brewing in our R&D labs. We have at least 20% of our talents researching and developing new ideas.

For example, together with scientists from Stanford University, we are researching the correlation between the higher risk of developing cancer and improper nutrition.

These projects help us to keep in touch with the global trends and not miss a chance to create solutions for emerging problems.

Tadas Burgaila | Co-Founder

Tadas Burgaila is an entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of Kilo Health. During his career, Tadas has launched more than 100 different projects, with the biggest win yet – Kilo Health.

"We have at least 20% of our experts researching and developing new ideas."