Men’s health: 7‑figure seed round for Kranus Health

Bonn, Germany — Kranus Health, the digi­tal men’s health plat­form, today announ­ced a seven-figure seed funding. HTGF, A Round Capi­tal, Venture Base­camp and Dr. Ralph Müller are new inves­tors in Kranus Health. In addi­tion to the new inves­tors, exis­ting busi­ness angels, inclu­ding Konstan­tin Mehl (foun­der Foodora + Kaia Health), have again parti­ci­pa­ted in the seed round.

With the fresh capi­tal, Kranus Health will conti­nue to expand its men’s health plat­form and take the next step of laun­ching a reim­b­ursable digi­tal therapy as a sustainable solu­tion for erec­tile dysfunc­tion. The exis­ting expert network of urology specia­lists will also be further expan­ded to reach even more men with Kranus Health solutions.

The digi­tal health company Kranus Health was foun­ded in 2020 by Jens Nörters­häu­ser, Thilo Klein­schmidt, Niko­lay Dimo­la­rov and Profes­sor Kurt Miller. The goal is to rethink men’s health­care and improve it using digi­tal solu­ti­ons. Men’s life expec­tancy is still up to 6 years behind women’s, thou­sands of men world­wide die too early due to unhe­althy life­styles and lack of preven­tive care and preven­tion — there is a lack of health awareness.

Kranus Health is on a mission to change that. Digi­tal and thus easily acces­si­ble pati­ent jour­neys lower men’s inhi­bi­ti­ons about consul­ting a doctor for their problems and sustain­ably support a healthy life­style because users inter­act with the digi­tal offe­ring in an uncom­pli­ca­ted and frequent manner. The first offe­ring being deve­lo­ped is a reim­b­ursable digi­tal therapy for erec­tile dysfunc­tion (DiGA as an “app on prescrip­tion”). In this clini­cal picture, there is a close connec­tion with serious cardio­vas­cu­lar dise­a­ses such as heart attacks, the risk factors of which should also be redu­ced by Kranus Health therapy. The startup works closely with medi­cal specia­lists and has alre­ady built up a broad network of experts from German urologists.

“Kranus Health has deve­lo­ped an offe­ring based on scien­ti­fic evidence that provi­des urolo­gists with enti­rely new and, most importantly, root cause-orien­­ted opti­ons in trea­ting their pati­ents, accor­ding to Profes­sor Kurt Miller,” Chief Medi­cal Offi­cer at Kranus Health

With the fresh capi­tal and the inves­tors’ network, the digi­tal therapy will be further deve­lo­ped this year and laun­ched as a reim­b­ursable product, and the digi­tal plat­form for men’s health will also be expan­ded with addi­tio­nal offerings.

“In the clini­cal picture of erec­tile dysfunc­tion, current offe­rings such as medi­ca­ti­ons are aimed at alle­via­ting the symptoms, but not the causes. With its digi­tal solu­tion, Kranus is helping to improve the quality of life of a large number of men in a long-term and goal-orien­­ted manner,” explains Louis Heinz, Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF

About Kranus Health

Kranus Health aims to help men live healt­hier, longer lives by provi­ding easy, straight­for­ward access to the latest medi­cal care. Foun­ders Thilo Klein­schmidt and Jens Nörters­häu­ser have known each other for many years through their time toge­ther at McKin­sey & Company, and both have been passio­nate about the possi­bi­li­ties of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion for years. But both also had a keen inte­rest in the health­care sector. Jens is origi­nally a bio-engi­­neer and has years of profes­sio­nal expe­ri­ence in the phar­maceu­ti­cal field. Thilo comes from a medi­cal family, his father is a urolo­gist. The idea of foun­ding Kranus at the begin­ning of 2020 was ther­e­fore an obvious one and also took place against the back­drop of regu­la­tory chan­ges, in parti­cu­lar the Digi­tal Utility Act (DVG). Since then, it has been possi­ble to signi­fi­cantly improve health­care in Germany through digi­tal therapies.

Profes­sor Kurt Miller, former Chief of Urology at Charité Berlin, and CTO Niko­lay Dimo­la­rov (Celo­nis, among others) comple­ment the foun­ding team to jointly imple­ment Kranus’ vision. For this purpose, Kranus Health deve­lops digi­tal thera­pies based on current scien­ti­fic findings supported by tele­me­di­cal care from medi­cal specia­lists. The spec­trum of services ranges from thera­pies for taboo dise­a­ses such as erec­tile dysfunc­tion to early detec­tion and preven­tion (e.g. cardio­vas­cu­lar diseases).

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas.

Almost EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,700 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 120 companies.Investors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­­fer-Gesel­l­­schaft and the compa­nies ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Bank, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, FOND OF, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG.