Tokura secures seed funding for the future of outpatient surgery

Outpatient care is one of the greatest challenges and opportunities facing the German healthcare system. While more and more procedures are to be carried out outside of hospitals in the future, the appropriate structures are lacking in many places. This is where the Berlin-based HealthTech start-up Tokura sees its opportunity. The company has now closed a mid-seven-figure seed financing round.

The round was led by Heal Capital and Redalpine. In addition, a number of angel investors are also participating via the investor alliance better ventures.

The capital will be used to set up the first location and to further develop the company's own technology platform.

Outpatient treatment encounters structural limits

For years, politicians and health insurance companies have been pushing for more planned operations to be carried out on an outpatient rather than inpatient basis. The reasons are obvious: lower costs, more efficient processes and shorter stays for patients.

Germany has one of the most expensive healthcare systems in the world and yet patients wait a very long time for scheduled procedures.

Dr. Daniel Kreter, Co-Founder of Tokura.

But the reality in clinics is often different. Many outpatient facilities do not have the necessary infrastructure to handle large numbers of cases efficiently. At the same time, hospitals are struggling with staff shortages and economic pressure. According to current analyses, several million inpatient procedures could be performed on an outpatient basis in Germany in the future. However, many places lack specialized surgery centers, standardized processes and digital tools.

Infrastructure instead of surgery operations

Tokura does not see itself as a traditional healthcare provider, but rather as an infrastructure partner for doctors and clinics.

The company provides specialized surgical centers in which registered surgeons and hospitals can perform procedures. In addition to the facilities, the offering also includes well-coordinated teams, standardized processes and digital control systems.

Outpatient surgery is no longer a niche topic. It is one of the biggest structural shifts in the German healthcare system. We don't need another study, we need someone to turn it into reality.

Markus Müschenich, Partner at Heal Capital

This should relieve medical professionals of organizational tasks and allow them to concentrate more on the actual treatment. At the same time, Tokura is offering to set up and operate new outpatient surgery centers together with medical partners.

Founders bring scale-up experience

The founders behind Tokura are Daniel Kreter and David Rizor. Kreter has many years of experience in the start-up and scale-up world, including at Zalando and Taxfix. At Taxfix, Rizor was responsible for strategic issues and financing processes with a total volume of more than 300 million euros.

The team is supported by a medical advisory board with experts from hospitals and medical practices, including specialists from the fields of surgery, dermatology and anesthesia.

Large market with growing pressure to reform

The topic is highly relevant for investors. Demographic change, rising healthcare expenditure and political reforms are increasing the pressure to organize treatments more efficiently. Tokura is not only addressing a digitalization problem, but also a fundamental need for infrastructure. In the long term, the company wants to create the conditions to be able to perform up to one million operations per year on an outpatient basis.

Whether this ambitious goal will be achieved remains to be seen. However, one thing is clear: with the increasing shift of medical services from hospitals to outpatient structures, the need for new operator models is also growing - and this is precisely what Tokura is focusing on.