Product/Market Fit Program Guide 1
About Product/Market Fit 3 Service offering 3 Locations 4 Funding 7 Available budget 7 Funding Grants 7 Contractual documents 7 Application Process & Requirements 7 Procedure 7 Submission 8 Eligibility criteria 8 Selection Criteria 8 Selection & Jury 9 Deliverables and outputs 9 Reporting 10 Useful information 11 Timeline 11 Contact 11 ANNEX 1 SELECTION CRITERIA 12 2
The Product/Market Fit program is intended to support digital health and medtech start-ups in their validation and internationalization to other European countries/markets. Start-ups get customized guidance upon market entry barriers in the countries(s) of their choice. About Product/Market Fit Entering a new market as a digital health start-up requires correct market insights, knowledge on regulation, adequate contacts and a possible re-fit of your product and/or business model to the necessities of that market. Going on your own, as a start-up, requires a lot of resources, time and money. The Product/Market fit program offers you a quick market scan in Sweden, Estonia, Spain, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, and France. The information you acquire will give you actionable insights and will be of tremendous value for your company to convince investors in the next funding round, further explore or discard possibilities on a certain market. Service offering The Product/Market Fit program offers the following services to digital health start-ups in the above-referenced locations: GO2MARKET REALLIFE TESTING Market access: key users, key decision Experimentation living lab (problem/solution makers, distributors for a certain segment fit) Business model in a particular market Interoperability validation & testing Market information: healthcare organization, Clinical validation health IT systems & standards, private/public Product customization market, market size Performance & scalability testing Regulatory, privacy & security Revenue model, willingness to pay & reimbursement Landing office space DELIVERABLE: Market access report + stakeholder list DELIVERABLE: ToDo List FACILITIES NETWORK Facilities in the local ecosystems in coworking spaces. These facilities can be used upon agreement with the local partner. Access to a large network of experienced health & care stakeholders; entrepreneurs, decision makers, large enterprises and investors. These services are available depending on the location and the service provider and are valued in approx. 3
25.000 based upon a customized project plan between the digital health/medtech start-up and the service provider. Applicants are strongly encouraged to discuss an appropriate service offer with the relevant contact at their preferred locations. Locations Belgium The IMEC offering consists of (a) FYS (Find Your Stakeholder) an innovation tool to help healthcare entrepreneurs and businesses get a full overview of the market they are aiming to access, (b) performance and interoperability testing and (c) Living Lab Services. After a first orientation workshop, a specific offering will be worked out with the winning health start-up. IMEC offers the following services: 1. Business Innovation Via a healthcare specific innovation framework (A&A approach), imec researchers are able to analyze all stakeholders within a targeted market-environment without forcing them into pre-made categories and roles. The Model is organized in a step-by-step fashion (Understand, Environment, Define Stakeholders, Investigate Stakeholders and Assemble). 2. User Innovation Capturing, understanding and validating users interactions with products and services, at an early stage, transforming ideas into prototypes users can interact with in their daily context, shaping (minimum) viable products through an iterative, agile process. 3. Technical Innovation Technical testing offers access to the hardware, measurement equipment, user-friendly software tools and professional technical expertise needed to efficiently prototype, develop, and test your ICT innovations. Our staff is ready to assist you throughout the entire design, development and performance evaluation cycle of your innovative product, application or protocol. This both on performance testing and scalability of your product as well on all relevant international health information exchange standards and interoperability between your application and the sending/receiving software. 4
Estonia University of Tartu will provide following services: Contacts to doctors, clinical experts, local industry, investors and support organizations Identifying local opinion leaders and the first users Defining a business model suitable for the local market Help in getting touch with other ecosystem organizations in the Baltics Information about networking events in Estonia Support with registering a company and information about local support measures for R&D and market access activities, finding office space. France Medicen Paris Region and Cap Digital are competitiveness clusters of the Paris Region, dedicated respectively to life sciences and digital innovations. Together they represent a unique inter-cluster initiative and a direct access to one of Europe s largest ecosystem in digital Healthcare, gathering more than 200 stakeholders in the field: industries for most part but also academics, top research institutes, hospitals (AP HP is the largest public hospital network with 37 hospitals), incubators, living labs and territorial authorities. Offer of services in a nutshell: Network and connections Identify/get you in touch with the right Industry/academia partners Help you to get in touch with other bio-clusters & ecosystems Understanding the French innovation ecosystem International events in Paris and France / matchmaking Workshop, seminars and thematic business tours Main contact point towards experts Access to the French market Access to incubators and soft landing programs Access to living labs, clinicians and test beds Coordination with other agencies to help understand the opportunities of developing activities in France (eg tax credit policies for R&D activities) Germany Medical Valley will identify the requirements of the company regarding market access in Germany during an initial workshop. Based on these requirements a need-driven support service will be offered consisting of an initial market analysis, identification of key opinion leaders and first users, establishing contact to potential commercialization partners/distributors initiated and defining a business model for the German market. In addition to that further support can be given according to the need of the company: Touchdown-base; support in opening up the German branch office; acquisition of investments and funds; support in clinical validation and regulatory. 5
The Netherlands YES!Delft has the biggest tech ecosystem of the Netherlands that include entrepreneurs, coaches, corporates, government, the most important thing YD can help with is making sure all these parties are aligned and meeting with all these parties are planned in a relatively short period. The result should be that if you want to have access to the Dutch market you can fly in for 1 or 2 weeks and meet all relevant parties. Spain Together IFEDES and University Politecnica de Madrid offer to accelerate the startups market orientation in Spain with value added services such as market introduction, competition analysis, pricing model in Spanish market, market validation with stakeholders, legislation etc, that offer strategic market insights and speed up the go2market in Spain by making use of their network of business contacts in the health domain. Sweden RISE is a leading international innovation partner that can provide exclusive access to corporate collaboration and country wide e-health and life science clusters in most major Swedish cities and international networks Scandinavia and Europe. RISE can facilitate introduction to various start-up programs including acceleration, incubator collaborations and industry partnerships. RISE is committed to offer custom introduction to the Swedish health market and innovation system, strategic insights on market penetration strategies, key opinion leaders, regional support, and office establishment and key beach heads. Further support in world class design sprints, investment strategies and access, accelerator programs, expert technical and end user knowledge, due diligence and regulatory support can be contracted. We have dedicated start-up support with a speed-tomarket perspective. United Kingdom The Innovation Agency works closely with the NHS, academics, local government and industry to improve health, generate economic growth and put innovation into practice. We connect businesses with the NHS and wider healthcare economy. We can support the development of an idea, provide advice on navigating the NHS, help with clinical trials, build partnerships and support access to funding or commercial expertise. Additionally, we could provide clinical input into your product, arrange access to clinical experts and evaluators, help with procurement, tender responses and tailored marketing for the NHS. 6
Funding Available budget The Product/Market Fit program has an available budget of 400,000 Euros to assist digital health start-ups to take their health related products to European markets, other than their home market. Winning projects will each receive services to the maximum amount of 25,000 Euro. The budget will be made available via a competitive call beginning 2018. Funding Grants Digital health start-ups can apply for services, worth maximum 25.000, to start a Product/Market Fit project. This funding is intended to explore the market potential of the product in another country than the home market and perform a market validation. Offered countries are Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, United Kingdom. A minimum of 1 and maximum 3 digital health / medtech start-ups will be allowed per country. No cash payments will be made to the digital health start-up. Contractual documents No cash payments will be made to the digital health start-up. The elected digital health start-up and the local service provider need to agree on a Product/Market Fit offer (first deliverable). You can find a template of that offer stating the applicable terms and conditions such as but not limited to intellectual property rights on the Product Market Fit section at the EIT Health site. The Digital Health Start-up will comply with all applicable laws and regulations (including, without limitation, the laws and regulations relating to export and state aid). Application Process & Requirements Procedure Requests for funding must be submitted using the online application form. Submitted applications will initially be assessed against the eligibility criteria (see annex 1 below). A substantive review and award of Product/Market Fit funding is performed by a selected jury panel. Based on this evaluation, the best 16 projects will be set against their countries of preference and an assignation will be made to a service provider. Contracts are closed with each selected digital health start-up at the moment when a Product/Market Fit offer is signed with the service provider of the assigned destination. 7
Submission The submission makes use of the online application form that consists of the elements below. Once an application is submitted, no modifications or updates will be admitted. Applications must be received by the closing time and date of the call. Late proposals will not be evaluated. Once your application is submitted an email will be sent to confirm the acknowledgement of receipt. By applying a digital health or medtech start-up agrees with the applicable terms and conditions for a Product/Market Fit service. Application form including: Company information and vision Team Proof of traction in home market Details on product and competition Details on the target European markets (for the Product/Market Fit exercise) & how the Product/Market Fit service fits into your business strategy. All applications must be made in ENGLISH. Eligibility criteria The digital health or medtech start-ups need to be at the right maturity stage and fulfil a couple of basic requirements to take the best profit from this service. We require your company to: Be a Digital health or medtech start-up (ehealth, mhealth, Clinical decision support, BigData and even Medtech, Lifetech & Biotech if a digital component) Established in Europe Have a technological innovation; either a technological breakthrough or deploying an existing technology in an innovative way in a new application domain. Have at least a Minimum Viable Product Have a maturity of advanced seed stage or preparing Series A Have at least a 1st paying customer in home country (i.e. country of incorporation) Own the intellectual property rights or have a license to use them Selection Criteria All applications that meet eligibility criteria will be assessed by an experienced jury who will score and rank each proposal according to a grid of selection criteria mentioned in the table in annex 1. Specifically, the following parameters will be taken into account: 8
Go To Market: concerns the need and potential value of the envisaged product application for actors in the healthcare industries. Specific criteria are: clear definition of the customer need, detailed elaboration of the business model, identification of competitive differentiators, go to market strategy with a clear identification of the initial market. Technological Excellence: concerns the state and quality of the working product on a technological level and the alignment with Product/Market Fit objectives. Specific criteria are: technical advancement of the MVP, the technical soundness of the proposed commercial product; innovativeness of the envisaged solution. In particular applicants must have a minimum viable product. Team Excellence: concerns the commitment of the team and the capability to develop and bring the commercial product to market. Specific criteria are the experience of the team, the proven track record of working together, technical and business expertise, readiness for being coached and a clear international business orientation. Business Status and Potential: concerns the ability to leverage the provided support into sustainable returns. Specific criteria are: maturity of the prototype, capability to plan and execute, and business potential in terms of annual revenue. Fit with the product market fit programme: concerns the maturity of the company and being at the best moment in the company s evolution to benefit at a maximum from the product/market fit exercises in a different country. Specific criteria are: maturity of the company, ability to scale to the new country and business potential. Selection & Jury The Product/Market Fit program will select 16 digital health start-ups, which will receive services to the maximum amount of 25.000 for one product/market fit exercise in one of the 8 participating countries. Each country will have a minimum of 1 and maximum of 3 start-ups to deliver such services. After ranking and selection by the jury, selected applicants will be matched with a countrye. In case some destinations are over demanded, the product/market fit program holds the right to offer another country to the start-up upon mutual agreement. In the case no agreement is reached after 2 weeks, the start-up next in rank will get the opportunity for offered Product/Market Fit services. The Program coordination will ensure that the expert jury members do not have any conflict of interest in relation to the proposal or project on which they are required to give an opinion. Reviewers will evaluate proposals remotely. Start-ups can mention possible conflict of interest in the application and state exclusions for specific jury members/ companies. Deliverables and outputs Upon selection, the digital health start-up needs to find agreement on an offer with the indicated service provider in the country of choice. This offer will be signed by both parties and needs to contain milestones, deliverables and time indications. For enabling the execution of delivered results, the local Product Market Fit partner and the selected digital health or medtech start-up shall define and collaborate in the following deliverables: 9
TYPE Title Description Timing DEL Offer This plan states effort, work plan, time & money spend in the agreed services between the start-up and the service provider. Needs to be signed by end of May. April/May 2018 OUT Intermediate evaluation All selected start-ups will participate on a monthly basis to the progress meetings in order to meet the milestones, collaboration and quality of the service. Monthly OUT End evaluation All selected start-ups will participate in the end evaluation upon completion of the service. Use will be made of the Innovatrix methodology Nov 2018 DEL Report P/M Fit Service End deliverable consists of the findings of the market validation and go2market strategies. Nov 2018 Reporting In November 2018 each start-up needs to perform a formal assessment, by means of the Innovatrix tool. All start-ups agree to provide full collaboration in this exercise. The data obtained by this exercise will be property of IMEC for the further development and improvement of the Innovatrix tool. 10
Useful information Timeline Product/Market Fit Timeline Publication of the call 15/02/2018 Closure of the call 30/03/2018 at 4 PM CEST time Eligibility Check & Selection 2-13/4/2018 Outcome of the selection 17/4/2019 Commencement of project As of 1/5/2018 Signature of the project plan May 2018 Finalizing of the selected projects November 2018 Contact Get in touch with us pmfit@imec.be 11
Annex 1 Selection Criteria Customer segment: understanding Needs: understanding Current practices: understanding Value promise Barriers: understanding Valuechain Funding level and sophistication Revenues Chances of bankruptcy Intellectual property (Digital) Solution (product): understanding Scalability Which are your primary customer segments, target groups or verticals? What are common and distinctive customer characteristics? In what (use-)context do we situate these segments? What is the impact (on quality of life / business continuation) of the need for your primary customer segment? What are the current practices: competitors, current behaviour, current alternatives and potential benchmarks? How clear is your value promise? The marketing message is more than mentioning used technologies or implemented features; it is the real business benefits the customers can enjoy What are the critical blocking barriers for market entry, customer adoption and customer usage? How is the power concentration? Other parties can be distributors, suppliers, partners, necessary APIs, etc. Level and sophistication of funding Revenues Probability of bankruptcy in the short to medium term. Runway: the amount of time until the company goes out of business, assuming the current income and expenses stay constant. Degree of formalization of the different IP rights (copyrights, trademarks, patents and software) in the company What is the maturity of your (digital) solution on the following Technology Readiness Levels Degree of international scalability and operational scalability 12
Sustainable advantage Business skills International business orientation Revenue potential Company lifecycle Fit with the P/M Fit program How sustainable is the complete solution's advantage? IP, data, first mover advantage, clinical validation, unique position,? Competencies to run a business Openness and ability to conducting international business What are your expected total revenues? General appreciation of the start-up's lifecycle. is this proposal a good fit for the P/M Project? 13