Salu

Disclaimer

1. All research on startup and the whole investment memo has been done for personal use of Akim Arhipov.

Backstory

General overview

Salu is basing the Value Proposition on three main pillars:

3. Salu packages include the whole family - They want to ensure everyone gets the medical help they need so their health support automatically extends to your whole family.

Last year, company has managed to achieve:

Problem

Solution

As things stand, the services Salu is offering as follows:

1. Online Medical Consultation - chat with medical expert
2. Sick Leave Management - Easily open and close sick leave from the comfort of your home
3. Prescribing Medication - Get prescribed medication online if medically suitable
4. Referrals to Specialists - Get a referral to a specialist online if medically suitable (specialist cost covered by public health insurance)
5. Doctor’s Appointment - Staff is available for in-person meetings if necessary (at Salu’s cost)
6. Lab tests and Analyses - Perform lab tests and analyses if medically necessary (at Salu’s cost)
7. Pre-Travel Medical Consultation - Expert advice, vaccinations, and health recommendations for a safe journey
8. Preventative Healthcare Solutions - Health analyses packages with expert feedback and reminders for your body’s needs
9. In Q2, Salu launches its comprehensive health coverage including primary & specialty care, hospitalisation and preventive care (similar to private health insurance). This way, Salu can be the primary health plan for both individuals & companies.

Operations

• Salu has an internal medical team (nurses & doctors) providing online medical care. Offline medical care is provided by Salu’s partner clinics. The cost of partner clinics is covered by Salu, however, their volume enables them to negotiate better terms. Whenever you need medical help, you start an online chat with Salu’s medical team. Salu’s medical team determines the right treatment, incl. which analyses, procedure, etc. is required → this enables Salu to keep costs under control & prevent misuse/fraud.
• Online medical care is provided via chat, ie asynchronous consultations. This means, one nurse/doctor can handle multiple patients simultaneously or ca 25 patients in an hour (vs 4 patients an hour by a traditional GP). This approach is vital for scalability.
• Out of ca 18k consultations made on Salu, 90% of all health issues have been resolved entirely online, significantly reducing the medical cost for resolving health issues.
• Salu has a medical team based in Estonia providing medical care across the EU on a cross-border basis (ie no local licenses or medical team required). This means, they have a cost arbitrage - MRR per user in Finland/Spain can be ca 60-70% higher than in Estonia, however, the online medical cost (90% of health issues) remains the same for all markets.
• As online care is provided via chat (text-based consultations), many of the consultations can be fully automated and resolved without nurse/doctor being involved in the process (e.g., closing sick leave, renewing prescriptions, etc.). This further enables scaling and brings down the operating cost.

Market

To look at the available alternatives and their issues:

Go-to market / Marketing

• Salu works with the group admins & activists to acquire customers through these channels.
• Currently the best converting channels are expat communities in social media (example: “Expats in Estonia”, with 22k members on FB), WoM/referral and SEO.
• 94% of customers are highly satisfied with our service, leaving us a maximum score - a strong indicator of sustainable, long-term organic growth via referrals.

B2B Approach

• In healthcare, payers and users of (healthcare) services are 2 different persons (an individual uses healthcare services, but employer/insurance pays for it). Selling to / partnering with various healthcare payers (mostly employers & insurances) are key to scalability on top of B2C growth.
• Salu plans to scale through B2B - a) private health insurances and b) employers & relocation sp’s. These B2B customers will pay for Salu services on behalf of their employees/insured individuals.

• 4 employers covering in total ca 200 end-users, incl Yolo Group; Cariad Technologies, Volkswagen’s R&D center in Estonia. In Q2, Salu targets to start a pilot with Bolt
• 3 relocation service providers - Jobbatical, ReloEst, MoveMyTalent
• From insurance side, Salu recently started pilots with ERGO, If, Compensa to provide medical care services for individuals with private health insurance.
• Insurance companies currently carry a high medical cost as >90% of medical services used by insured people are provided in-person with no prior triage. Salu has proved 90% of health needs of its customers are solved online. Through pilots, Salu aims to prove it can significantly reduce insurance companies’ medical cost by solving their insured customers health needs mostly online (at fraction of the cost compared to private clinics with physical infrastructure). If the cost reduction is proven , insurances are highly motivated to send all their insured customers to Salu, ensuring strong scalability.

Business Model and Traction

Subscription includes:

Key Metrics

March estimated unit economics:

Team

Use of Funds (500k€)

Round Terms