#11: Digital Health

Digital health is a technology that appeared only a few years ago. Up to now, it was very often overlooked. The current situation is helping digital health to show its full potential. For example, Digital health can be used as a triage system, finding out what kind of illness a patient has with chatbots and telemedicine solutions. Afterward, the patients can be referred to real-life doctors - to the right one.

A solution Symptoma has developed. In this episode, I am talking with the CEO of Symptoma, Jama Nateqi, about the real potential of digital health.

Another novel technology appeared recently - blockchain. Astrid Woollard, Partner at Scytale Ventures, is investing in companies that develop blockchain-based solutions. She has joined us to chat about the leverage blockchain can provide for digital health and the entire healthcare system.

Link to the Video of the Recording:
YouTube

Speaker:
Astrid Woollard (https://www.linkedin.com/in/astridwoollard/)
Christian Soschner (https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiansoschner/)
Jama Nateqi (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jama-nateqi/)

Companies:
CS Life Science Invest (https://www.cslifescienceinvest.com/)
Scytale Ventures (https://scytale.ventures/)
Symptoma (https://www.symptoma.com/)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to the podcast Beginner's Mind. Today with another Life Science Get Together episode. My name is Chris. Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is holding the world hostage. It is April 9, 2020. For weeks now, the entire world is put on hold. Scientists all over the world are working hard to find the cure against the virus and its disease, COVID-19. Therapeutics and vaccines are already in development. In recent years, a novel technology emerged, its digital health applications. In the beginning, it was challenging to find funding for this novel approach. But in the current situation, the digital health world is showing its full potential. In today's podcast episode, my interview partners and I will chat about how digital health solutions will help to successfully overcome the pandemic threat. I have the opportunity to talk today to two experts from Austria, Jaman Adecwi, CEO of Symptoma, and Astrid Wollard, partner at Skydale Ventures. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having us. Thanks. Astrid, uh, what brought you to the life science industry?

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Yes, well, that's uh we need to go back a few years for that, but basically, very early on in my life, I discovered my passion for microbiology and actually, in particular, immunology. So went on to study microbiology genetics in Vienna and continued with a PhD in cell biology at the University of Oxford. Um, I spent actually every summer during my studies working in different labs and have basically seen every stage from drug development from early stage discovery phase to production production and quality control. Um, but I quickly discovered that I found it too difficult to keep my interest for one very specific niche topic, which is what you really need to do in science if you want to be successful. So I moved into a field called technology transfer, which is uh more or less uh the art of reading short descriptions of academic um research assets, and um you need to research and assess them for commercial value and then come up with some kind of business proposition for this technology. So it's got a lot to do with intellectual property management, which means choosing from a menu of available protection mechanisms such as patents, trade secrets, trademarks, corporate, and all the others. And this is really where I fell in love with digital solutions, as these are much harder to get right and involve a much deeper strategic understanding of the technology and the IP classes. So patents can make sense but aren't necessarily the best option. Trade secrets have a upset but carry risks and require creative operational solutions. And of course, copyright and licensing need to be also thought through carefully. And a lot of companies get that part unfortunately quite wrong. But in any case, so tech transfer is a great reading ground for aspiring VCs because the methodology of assessing technologies in an academic setting is actually quite similar to assessing potential investment propositions. So about more than a year ago, I joined SciTail Venture as partner, and um very short, so we're investing in blockchain and related technologies, and actually we see uh lot of applications uh also in the life science industry, uh, which is certainly one of our interest areas, amongst others, such as energy and legal tech. So we're less in this kind of DeFi and cryptocurrency space as such, but we are looking more into applications with real users behind it.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Thank you very much, Astrid. Uh Jama, you are one of the most experienced entrepreneurs for digital health solutions in Austria. What brought you in that direction?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Um, maybe also uh a long story. I think I was five or six years old when uh the idea came to my mind that I wanted to become a doctor, a medical one. So at first it was a general practitioner. Then when I started my civilian service, I wanted to become an eye doctor because I seen so many doctors uh being frustrated because of their workload. Then when I actually started med school, I wanted to become a brain surgeon, and now I do have my degree, but I'm essentially building an artificial doctor. Um from the from an entrepreneurial side, I started my uh first social enterprise in 1999, so 21 years ago, um, was also a huge success. Um, and then found uh Thomas uh in 2002 as my technical founder. Um, and so we are working together since 18 years. I started med school in 2004, and in my third year, so in 2006, um I actually had the idea of symptoma, which came across uh like this that in in med school we we had to solve cases of patients. Uh, we were a team of eight students or so, had all the literature available a doctor would have, and uh hours of time, so quite unrealistic for a normal clinical setting. But even then, um, our results were quite frustrating. So, so many different sources to evaluate uh also the authority and the correctness, and then the list that we came up with of um possible diagnoses were not complete, um, major diagnoses were missing, and we couldn't really know which diagnosis um would be more probable over the other one. And so, as a as a lazy person, I uh tried to uh find a solution that was already available. So I just thought, okay, that I'm for sure there's going to be a search engine from symptoms to diseases that is already out there, and what I found was only uh non-viable solutions, and in my naivety, I thought I can do better and uh do so quite quickly. So um I uh yeah, I asked the person responsible for uh for his research at the university, and they pointed me to an incubator in Salzburg. Um, so I brought uh Thomas as the co-founder on board, and uh then we drafted our first business plans, and uh we're yeah we're quite strong in our belief that by the end of my studies, so in 2009, uh I would have finished symptoma, it's up uh out there, and I can actually become a real doctor. Until we realized that um, I mean a lot of groups have already uh researched on this very topic since the 1970s and didn't accomplish to uh didn't accomplish a viable solution. And uh so it took us 14 years, and now we have Symptoma as the digital health assistant. Um so patients and doctors uh enter symptoms and keywords, even they answer questions and they receive a list of matching diseases um sorted by probability. And so far, so 14 years of research and development behind it, um operating at a profit since beginning, uh, biggest disease database in the world. We also have the biggest reach worldwide, so we are symptomas the most use symptom checker worldwide by patients and doctors, um, and the highest diagnostic accuracy. And uh we have a couple of um studies that we have published uh called regarding the diagnostic accuracy. So essentially, I didn't have any choice in order to operate in this field in this uh in this area. Um it was like one choice uh led to to another, and uh and I'm quite happy uh where I am right now uh forming uh with the Intelitent team um the new um the future of the medicine as we envision it. If this is answering your question.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Thank you very much, very impressive and a great development uh from you both. Uh, in the preparation of our talk, uh Astrid was so nice to share a paper from you, Chama, and from your team, uh, which basically brought me to this call because I saw it on LinkedIn. And you published recently uh a paper and artificial intelligence-based first-line defense against COVID-19, digitally screening citizens for risks via chatbot. Uh, could you tell us? Could you tell me a little bit more about the paper?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Yeah, absolutely. So it's based on those 14 years of research and development and what we're doing here. Um, it is, so far as I know, the only artificial intelligence uh that is assessing the risk level of a given person uh for COVID-19. It is part of our main application. So um you can go to symptoma.com, for instance, um and start the test there. Um you will receive 18 questions, including um a question regarding further symptoms. So it is actually working with three texts here. So it's not only standardized, uh, it's not only a standardized questionnaire, but it allows you also to enter the real-world data that you might have. Um and then it ranks the probability of COVID against 20,000 other diseases. And uh we were quite stunned ourselves that the accuracy um to distinguish from even really similar diseases such as the cold and hay fever and the flu was quite high. Uh, so the in medical terms um there are three important uh metrics. The most important one is the accuracy. So this test has an accuracy of 96.32 percent, which means that with this accuracy, uh with this certainty, um, we can uh correctly flag persons with a high risk. The sensitivity means out of a hundred persons, how many do we correctly flag? And the sensitivity, and we are also right now uh already in the process of the second and third study, uh, we are comparing the other solutions that are out there. And here we found uh 96.66 uh percent sensitivity, which means out of a hundred um persons with COVID, we would at least detect 96% uh based on their answers. And then the specificity is also really important from the medical point of view, uh, because uh this value means that uh out of a hundred non-COVET patients, so patients that have another disease and not COVID, you do not want to make too many of them uh flag, you do not want to flag too many of them with uh with a COVID risk, because otherwise you would burn the system. Um, and there the specificity is also really high, so also 96.3 percent, which means that less out of 100 persons, less than four, would be falsely flagged with COVID 19. And so we've um we've published a lot of figures around that um and uh tested with uh thousands of cases. Um, it is publicly available, it is open access. We have um the highlights of the study also on a separate landing page of ours. Um, and the following studies are going to come. And we just think it is important to not only cry out on the market that we have a chatbot for this uh for this crisis, but to actually back it up with data on how accurate it really is.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

That's quite amazing. So, if I understand you right, in 96% of the cases you can correctly flag the person as uh having a high COVID risk uh in the current situation. I think it's very beneficial for the existing systems. Uh, I read in in the newspapers that uh the telephone number we have in Austria of 1450 is really overwhelmed with um with calls these days, and uh people have to wait very long to get the support they envision. Uh, how is the adoption, in your opinion, uh, into the healthcare system of digital health solutions?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

So, from our point of view, uh, we know that we cannot rely on um on the current stakeholders um uh too much. So, already now we have millions of um of tests conducted, so millions of search results and a world map, and this is going to be another study that we are going to publish where we already see the trends before the actual tests have have been conducted. Because, as you said, even the contact sensors, like the call centers, are overrun, uh let alone you do not have enough tests for all the citizens in this respective country. So, you need somehow still the data and the risk levels of specific areas. Um, so the adoption rate still is really high. Uh, so alone this week we had uh 12 inbound calls uh from corporates, from governments, from uh from hospitals and other uh tech um parties in uh in this area. Um and we see a high demand, for instance, um, to use this as this pre-screening tool to prioritize the resources correctly to those high-risk patients.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

That's great. Astrid, I believe you as an investor also uh get a lot of uh uh let's say uh ideas on the table these days. Uh, how is your involvement from SkyTeal Venture side into the COVID-19 discussion?

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Um so basically, um we find there is a lot of opportunity, and if there's anything positive that you can take from the situation that we're in now is um this increase in speed of um adoption of new technologies and uh digitalization. However, we see also that a lot of uh players who uh really lack sector expertise uh suddenly trying to come up with solutions that are questionable if they will work that way or if they can work that way and are more uh like say um risky. So it's more like uh kind of uh I think one uh article once uh coined a name like uh Corona Cowboys. So there are a lot of uh initiatives coming up now, hackathons that run over a weekend or a day or so that promise, oh, we're gonna you know change the world. And they certainly have really good intentions behind that. I don't want to question that, but the issue is really that um there is a reason why um companies like, for example, Symptoma have spent many, many years carefully building a product that incidentally can now also be used for COVID-19 and totally falls into the remit. Um but there are people now coming up with it, like, oh, you know, here's some quick money and we'll quickly put something together without really considering the ethical implications of it or just the the the usefulness of these technologies. Um so this is why we at Cyta Ventures we are actually involved in only one hackathon, which we think is actually a useful one. It is hosted by the likes of Ocean Protocol and Singularity Net under the DIA umbrella. And this is actually a hackathon that started now first of April, so submissions are still open, but this is a hackathon that uh runs for two months. So you have really at least two months um to uh build a product, and this is a much more reasonable time frame, really, to come up with something that um is effective in the market.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

I completely agree to what you say that um even we have currently a situation in which a lot of questions, especially on the statistics side, exist, um, we still have to think about uh ethical uh solutions and uh not quick fixes. And um, I think a lot of there's a lot in the pipeline of uh digital health solutions that actually can give support. The problems I do see currently when I read the numbers um on the internet is uh the number of diagnoses. I think currently we don't have uh solid diagnostics uh established on the market. And on the other hand, also uh when I look on the other side of the numbers of people who are counted uh on the worst outcome, uh there's also I think a little bit of inconsistency uh in the data generation. Uh your fund is working on the on the blockchain technology side, which I openly have to admit I really do not understand well enough. Uh, can you tell us a little bit more about uh what benefit blockchain technology in general can bring uh as value to the digital health discussion?

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Yes, well, um there are certain uh several aspects that you can really see. So, in general, blockchain tries to make things more transparent, um fairer, and really traceable um with uh with uh the promise of uh having a more secure network, even though this is also um an area that we could speak for hours on, because um getting a blockchain um architecture right is not uh that straightforward, and some blockchains out there are actually not more secure than a centralized uh system. And this is why if companies come to us really, then they will be very strongly grilled on that aspect. In any case, so where we see that um blockchain can help is for example in data sharing. So to make it transparent, where does data come from? Uh, where does it go? How is it being used? So the WHO actually recently announced that they also started a blockchain platform to tackle this issue, especially in this corona crisis. Um, then it's also important uh to, for example, trace the provenance of drugs. So, again, be clear where components came from, are the drugs really what it says on the package? And it's also a huge uh problem that there is a market with counterfeit um uh drugs in the supply chain area. Uh, we can also um see that there are a lot of applications for blockchains to um first have a digital record that is tamper-proof and that is transparent. Um, we also see uh digital identity uh a great area, and and that, for example, Kilk protocol in Berlin is actually really doing a great job. Um, they are building on a multi-chain universe called Polkadot, which is incidentally also now portfolio, which uh holds the promise of uh making this uh web-free uh reality so that there aren't only isolated blockchains here and there, but that they actually can speak to each other and transfer data between each other. And this is uh quite important for a number of uh applications. Um so other areas that we feel um blockchain would benefit from is, for example, also in clinical trials, recruitments and adherence. Because again, you can't have a digital record of people, you can basically say, like, okay, this is really uh the uh these are the attributes of these people, and uh this we can uh track adherence and give them some format uh form of incentivization. So, for example, they could, I don't know, whenever they click in and say, like, okay, we have actually now taken our dose or whatever, then they could get a token that they could then again spend in the ecosystem or actually exchange for another token or uh even into fiat money, whatever. Um, we also see in research tools that there are some interesting projects. So, for example, there's one in Switzerland called Molecule, and they have um the aim to accelerate innovation in the pharmaceutical industry um through a collaborative open market, and they actually also incentivize positive and negative data publishing. And I think especially the negative data publishing is an aspect that has been strongly overlooked in the life sciences industry, um, because everyone is only about publishing positive papers and getting cited for that and whatever else. Whereas there are actually other um areas um in the sciences where also negative data publishing is uh considered something good, like in mathematics, for example, so that people don't waste time on going for another proof or something. So this is something where we We feel that um blockchain can help a lot.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Thank you, Astrid. This is a very great and broad overview. I didn't really not realize that there are so many uh areas in our industry that blockchain technology can can actually uh uh help to make things better. Jama, how is it with uh with Symptoma? I believe you get also a lot of insight into the industry and you are an expert in what's going on in the digital health side. What interesting developments do you see, generally speaking, digital health on the market?

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Oh yeah. Um so we think that real-world evidence is um going to be the topic for for this decade to come. And the reason for that is quite simple. If you look at the current uh drugs that are being described for the blockbuster um uh diseases such as diabetes or asthma, uh like they have only 30-40 percent efficacy, which means that we're not talking about curing people, it's about showing a positive effect at all, which means that those drugs are tailored to uh to uh to a patient group where not by design 60% are never going to profit from it at all. And this is just a symptom of a bigger disease, which is that uh it goes it just also goes further with clinical trials, for instance. So um you try a drug for a patient group for which you think that this group is homogenous and or they all have one disease, and uh then your findings are inconclusive, and the last decades have shown this more and more. Um, and the reason for that is that essentially those groups really differ in they have different characteristics, and there are actually subgroups, and it might be there's one subgroup that is profiting a lot from this drug, and the other group is not profiting at all, and the third one is uh has even a negative impact. So the problem here is um that we do not know on how to correctly characterize uh those groups. Um and um if you understand the context on how those trials more often are being designed, it is about gathering the clinical data. So every data that you have, uh or any data that you can generate in a in a hospital or secured environment, the problem is that this is probably only not even 5% of the relevant data for a respective disease. So it might be that uh there are so many other factors outside of this hospitals that we do not track and we cannot track that might be relevant for the disease. And if you cluster and see, okay, the non-responses have all the same characteristics in common and the responders as well, uh, then you can um yeah, actually have those subgroups. It is going towards personalized medicine and in the end into precision medicine, where the idea is that the concept as of now, as just which is um previously said, that uh yeah, you're giving 100 persons uh this with asthma the same drug and only 40% are showing a positive effect at all, that this is essentially more or less gambling, right? It is not science at all, and this is quite worrisome where he claims uh medicine to be a highly scientific um uh industry or area. So the goal should actually be that every patient deserves the right diagnosis and treatment, which is our mission. So, which means that only if you understand the patient really in detail you can deliver the right drug for which you know that for almost for actually 100% of the cases, a patient like this one is going to profit from this drug. And um, it is going into this direction, especially in oncology. Um, whereas we see that the uh digital health is going to play the following role in uh in this persistent precision medicine uh field as a companion diagnostic in terms of okay, gathering as much data as possible, as convenient as possible, without the patient having to enter everything. Um, but then to standardize it in a way that allows for decision making on a personal level. And this is going to be the big role of digital health. Um, and yeah, the more uptake it it gains and coronavirus, the current pandemic is absolutely uh an accelerator for the uptake of digital health per se. But the long-term game is about uh real-world evidence that you can only um yeah, conclude with real-world data which you can only gather with digital health applications, if that makes sense for you.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Absolutely. Thank you very much, Jama. Astrid, you have a long history in tech transfer. You worked in in for the University of Oxford, also for uh the ISD here in Austria. How do you see the future of digital health?

SPEAKER_02 28:50

I think there will be more of it. Um, but um it we need to help these um ventures really get off the ground. And I think one of the uh developments, for example, that has been very significant and really intriguing is what Germany has done to basically allow that digital health applications can be acquired on prescription. And I think this is a model that probably Austria should also have a look at, and many other countries obviously as well. So um I think getting that closer to the user and have also sort of a catalogue of applications that have been vetted through that are make sense uh should be available. Um I see also that um something that actually also started in Oxford a number of years ago was, for example, these kind of video calls that you can have with a doctor or a therapist. I think this is also something that could be very interesting now in this kind of corona crisis, but also uh at the later stage, because I'm quite sure that this is not the last pandemic that we will see, maybe even within our lifetime. Um, so to basically also give patients access to healthcare um while not being uh at risk of uh contracting another disease at a practice, because as we have seen, I mean, um uh um SARS-CoV-2 can actually be um transmitted quite easily, uh it is suggested. So maybe more people have had it than we actually think. And technologies like these will be very important. So it's kind of doctoral demand. Um I think also that we will need to innovate a little bit more, maybe in terms of privacy-preserving technologies and communication tools. Um, because as we've seen also in recent discussions, that Zoom has suffered, for example, quite a lot. Um, that there is room for improvement. And I hope that the blockchain sphere can also do something for it. I mean, one tool that is coming actually from the blockchain space is called Lee Geller. Um it's actually built for the legal industry, but um, and has obviously had an enormous boost now in sign-ups uh recently, but this is also technology that could be also applied outside this area. And what I also think is quite important, um, we have had the issue now of that uh under this coronavirus umbrella, a lot of technologies suddenly uh get accepted by the public or also being deployed by governments that can itself be quite dangerous, like mass surveillance. So I totally get the um case for trying to trace, you know, if people adhere to the lockdown measures and all that. But we need to make sure that this does not stay the norm and that we actually keep building also privacy-preserving technologies.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

I was sorry, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

I'm also absolutely shocked um by the shift of mentality. So, first it was of course over-regulated, however, the data privacy aspect was really important and the scientific validation was important, and now it's like the loudest solution is winning. But uh from a long-term perspective, for the digital health industry, this is quite counterproductive because in the aftermath, uh, those solutions are going to be analyzed closely. Uh, and if you find that it is essentially the first step into mass surveillance or data privacy or any other standards have not been fulfilled at all, uh, this is going to leave a really negative impact on the industry growth at all. Um whereas I see it is an accelerate accelerator, the current crisis. I see the risk of um yeah, prematurely um yeah, throwing away off all of our standards and um our priorities um to just to uh receive a perceived relief that it not isn't not even is really a release, and I see the danger as well as uh as Astrid has outlined it right now.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

I can absolutely agree to that. I mean, um Astrid, after you mentioned the WHO at a look at the website, so we have uh quite a few outbreaks every year, so it's something that's happening constantly. And currently, when I look when I open the newspaper, I think there is a lot of panic, a lot of fear-based discussions. So I think the Olympic system is working at its best on a global scale. And I would also appreciate uh to go a little bit back to more scientific discussions and uh keep the standards high. Um, when I look at Europe especially, I think what I see in Europe uh in all areas, uh, digital health, diagnostics, medical devices, and therapeutics, we have really world-class basic research. But somehow translating the research into products in Europe seems to stumble a little bit. I mean, we can bootstrap companies uh for a couple of weeks, but uh in our areas usually we need uh a lot of capital. What uh challenges do you see? It's it's both of you, it's an open discussion. What challenges do you see for our industry currently?

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Yeah, I think that what you mentioned already, capital is definitely an issue here. I mean, first of all, I think technology technology transfer is um a very young uh kind of uh uh um sector in Europe still. I mean, the UK was really head starting with that, and you can see that um it's working really well in, for example, Germany as well. Um, but places like Austria still have some room for improvement, to be honest. Um, the capital part is uh something that is uh very visible also in Austria, unfortunately. And I think for that we can be really grateful for the IST Austria that it has created something like ISTCube, which is basically a fund that specifically um funds uh companies that come from this kind of deep tech environment so really come out of academia and from universities, because uh this is a very critical step usually that when they are finished with sort of an MVP or something that has been created in the lab, um they need really enough capital to get it going. And uh for that we still don't have enough in Austria, um, maybe also within Europe. I mean, there are some players around, which is good and promising, and you can see that it's increasing. I've heard also from a lot of colleagues in the US that they are looking more into European ventures now, um that they're looking into ways of accessing the market, which can in general be interpreted as a very positive sign, um, but it's certainly an issue that we have here as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

It's probably not only uh capital as uh as an investment. So um whereas it is a big block that is um that is a challenge for for the industry as a whole, especially in Europe and in Austria. Um the probably even bigger issue is um the lack of viable um traction with with customers, uh, because in Europe customers and the healthcare sphere are mostly really conservative in comparison to other markets, which is probably the biggest uh market entry barrier from a global perspective. So, for instance, in comparison in the US, you wouldn't not only have the capital, uh the growth capital, but you also you would have easier access uh for instance um to hospitals um or to clients uh in order to actually prove your year-year solutions. And so, as for symptoma, uh I mean um we are running a marathon for 14 years now and have a lot to show for. However, this was basically without growth capital. It was uh the investment from um from uh from both founders uh and of course uh the the cash flow mainly. Um but the biggest accelerator for startups is um probably going to be uh viable business models in healthcare and stakeholders that are more proactive allowing actually um companies to try out the solution and showing the impact. And this is probably the biggest challenge we have as an industry in Europe. Um the coronavirus is uh it is an accelerator because the the other the tech industry uh is getting to show off the solutions, but from a broader perspective, it's also this uh this mindset.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Thanks. Um a few years ago I thought I found the holy grail, and uh it's basically in Europe we have a lot of technology sitting around on the universities, and uh thanks for pointing out also that tech transfer is a challenge us it. Um so a few years ago I thought uh we have a lot of technology, so but we lack capital on one hand. And uh in the United States, when I saw the valuations going up and skyrocketing in certain areas, I thought, uh, why not flying over to the US and uh speaking directly with US-based investors? And actually, they did not find the Holy Grail because they pointed me at one direction and said, I mean, look, we know that that you have a lot of technology in Europe, but what you lack is talent, entrepreneurial talent. And I highly disagree with that perspective. How is your view on the European market in terms of talents? Uh, do we have enough or could we need more?

SPEAKER_00 39:12

It's actually quite bold. Um, yeah, so they have a lot of success regarding the startups and solutions in the US, for instance, and also other markets, uh, which is not based on talents. The the talent distribution in the worldwide is probably quite similar, right? It's about the chances you get. And I think the European companies are more than competitive from a talent point of view. And uh if if they would be frank with you, they know it themselves because they're starting increasingly to invest in European startups, just for the reason that, first of all, the talent is quite similar, and then for the second reason, um that they just lead uh lack access um uh to the money and that they are cheap to get in comparison to their to their own companies in the in the in their home markets. However, what the their business model or investment model actually is from my point of view, but I think Astrid has a better point of view, being an investor herself, is that uh they they partner with um local investors from Europe because someone has to to to monitor those startups closely.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

Yeah, so I mean on the talent front, I think um that I subscribe to what Jama is saying here. Basically, a talent distribution is quite equal everywhere. Um, and if you look, for example, at the blockchain sphere, I mean Europe is actually a leader in this technology, right? So Ethereum was built in Europe, um, then Polkadot is being built in Europe. Um, there's a huge vibrant um uh ecosystem for forming around Berlin, uh partially around London as well, um, Switzerland, hopefully one day also in Vienna. Um, I think what is an issue maybe within Europe is still this fear for failure. Um, so I could see a strong difference when I was um you know learning my trade basically in the UK for almost 10 years, that when I came back to Austria, that people were much more conservative. Um, that they were like, yeah, I'm not sure. And uh that even if if you show in your show in your CV that uh you have built a venture and failed, this is more often seen as something negative than rather something positive. Whereas in the UK, for example, yeah, fine, you tried it, you know, you made your experiences, and now let's get on with that, which is more much closer to the kind of mindsets that you experience in the US, where it's also more seen as a positive attribute. Um, in terms of partnering with local investors, I think this is something that certainly used to be a stronger um you know um factor these days, and certainly also for us as CyTel ventures, we don't really um require startups to be close to us. So we see it as a global market, and there are a lot of technologies around that can uh help you sync with teams or get updates uh or even well fly over once a year or twice a year or so to meet them in person. So uh I think the technology is there, and uh a lot of uh companies that go out to get VC money don't need that strong hold hand holding anymore. Um, certainly there are things here and there where um there's room for improvement, but uh it also depends on what kind of investor you are. So, for example, for us at CITEL Ventures, we um are not like super hands-on. So we like to receive like quarterly updates at least and have a like a transparent process that we know what is going on in these ventures. Uh, we'd certainly open up our networks for our ventures. So if we see that um we can help them by introducing two uh partners in our network, then we will certainly do so. Um, but it's really not a requirement that they're sitting next to us in an office or even the same town. No, I think these days this is less of a requirement than it used to be.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

That's really a good point. And uh I also liked your um your comment on the mentality of the European versus the American. And ironically, it is for us it was an advantage because um uh the US mentality regarding failure is fail fast, right? Uh in the US, uh in Europe it is failure is not an option but an embarrassment. And so symptom checkers have been uh tried out in the US for quite a long time and quite often, and at some point investors just fed up with it and uh didn't want to burn their money anymore. Whereas in uh in our case, uh I would also subscribe it to this European mentality that I mean both founders Tom and I have uh have left our our really promising career paths as medical doctors or as a physicist. Um and it was mainly driven, of course, of uh for the fear of failure. So this was actually what uh because we were giving up uh quite a lot and we wanted uh something to show for it, and that this was uh maybe the driver, the European culture that drew has uh yeah, was a force behind us uh pushing actually through even the hardest times in order to make this work. So in our case, at least at least it worked out uh in a good way.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Fair culture is quite an interesting point because I hear it quite frequently and quite often. Um I like your point that the mentality in the United States seems to be like fail fast, and uh it's also something I've seen therapeutic development where you want to quickly find out if uh the hypothesis is working or not. And on the other hand, I mean failure is is part of life, actually, especially entrepreneurial life. So from the martial arts training, the uh there's one proverb that uh like really much. It deals less with failure, it's more about falling, and they say uh seven times fall, eight times get up. So I think the the successful people have um one common theme that uh when they hit some point where they can't move ahead, that they just don't stop, they get up and do it again, or and do it even better. So I think this is a very, very important point. Um Talking about uh failure and falling, it always uh needs something uh that keeps people going. And my question to you is uh Astrid, uh, when I look at Skyle Ventures, what challenging challenges are you currently facing at SkyTeal Ventures uh where you're looking actively for support?

SPEAKER_02 46:02

Um well, challenges. Uh I mean uh we're always looking supporting any of our portfolio companies, but um in terms of support, I mean we we're also looking to uh get uh you know widen our network also in the corporate sphere. So we're also quite happy to talk to any kind of uh parties that are interesting, uh interested in building uh blockchain technologies, and we certainly can have a conversation around that and maybe help point to the one direction or the others. I mean, we are also in the process of speaking to investors for the next fund, really. So as a we are a venture capital fund, we only can take accreditors, investors, um as they're eligible, as such as also family offices, fund of funds, and single investors of 100k or more. And we expect to be open for new investment opportunities from summer. So we'll be happy to hear from any companies that also fit our investment mandate, which is very broadly um applications in the blockchain ecosystem that actually now drive use of these technologies. So less infrastructure layers because we feel that um there is basically already everything out there that could be used for the future. There will be some improvements here or there, um, but there is nothing substantially new that we believe that will come from an infrastructure level point of view. So it's really the time now for us to look more into the applications and see how we can actually get more usage of these kind of platforms.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Chama, how is it with Symptoma? What uh challenges are you currently facing and uh what kind of uh support would you appreciate?

SPEAKER_00 47:55

So the biggest challenge that we are facing is this pandemic for which the whole team has subscribed to to solve or to bring relief. And there from our perspective, um, so symptoma already is available in 36 languages. However, we we feel that in mostly in countries where less tests are actually available and where the numbers seem to be quite low, uh our data actually suggests that there's a high um uh infection rate going on in those countries. Um, and so what we need is maybe it is a collaborative offer uh effort, uh, but we need to localize quite fast in uh the 104 languages that we envision the system to be in in order to provide access to 4 billion people that uh yeah that need the access quite desperately right now.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

We are coming to the to the end of our interview, and I would like to ask uh one last question. Um, you both have gained a lot of experience and um you studied, you created companies, uh, you supported us with tech transfer, especially uh in the UK and in Austria, and gained a lot of experience. Uh, with all that experience that you gained, if you would have a chance, a time machine to fly back to your younger self, uh, what single piece of advice would you give your younger self?

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Actually, quite sure. It's like keep an open mind, listen, and never say never.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

Sharma, what advice would you give your younger self?

SPEAKER_00 49:39

Um of course, I mean this is uh a difficult uh question because um I would rather look into the future. Um, so I I would tell my oldest uh younger self um to to trust your intuition and and to just push the uh innovation through that you think is worthwhile. And I think in the end uh we did it anyway, so I couldn't uh probably suggest anything more other than to to stick to the idea and to the team that that you've built.

SPEAKER_01 50:15

Thank you very much to both of you for this very interesting uh interview, and I wish you all the best for the future and stay safe.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

Likewise, thank you very much for having the opportunity to speak to you. Been a very interesting conversation, also to have Jan on the call. So thank you very much for that.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

Yes, thanks for having us in the call, and it was really interesting to talk to you, Astrid and Christian. Have a great time.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Thanks. Bye bye. Thanks for listening. Please, please share the podcast and make sure you've subscribed. Have a great day.