As an entrepreneur, it sometimes happens that you become so enamored with your solution that you completely forget how it ultimately turns into a business.
The ‘founder trap’, as one of the founders of the medtech startup Droplet IV calls it, is a phenomenon they almost fell into themselves with a particular automatic flushing technology for IV lines in healthcare.
“We would likely have fallen into the classic ‘founder trap’ falling in love with the technology and perhaps prioritizing it too highly – if it hadn’t been for DTC (Danish Tech Challenge, ed.). The program gave us a sense of unity and a new way of thinking”, says co-founder of Droplet IV, Tore Victor Chrom Allerup.
But in 2022, the medtech startup, along with 19 other promising hardware startups, was selected for DTU Science Park’s accelerator program, Danish Tech Challenge. And that changed the company’s course.
Five intensive months later, when the program was over, the Danish medtech startup not only emerged as the winner of the Industriens Fond Entrepreneur Award but also gained a completely new understanding of what the startup life requires.
“We went from being a company with a simple invention, something that looked promosing but was ultimately just an idea. But an idea doesn’t just grow into a product. And even more importantly: a product that can be sold. Danish Tech Challenge helped us focus on this, and they played a significant role in ensuring that the business side is now coming together”, explains co-founder Tore Victor Chrom Allerup.
Danish Tech Challenge
- Danish Tech Challenge is a five-month intensive program where participants gain access to guidance from advisors and mentors, a prototype workshop, investors, and a grand prize of 500,000 DKK sponsored by Jyske Bank.
- Danish Tech Challenge was launched in 2014 as a development program aimed at technological hardware entrepreneurs working to bring new, physical product to market.
- Every year over 100 hardware startups apply, and 15 are selected to start the program.
- The program is run by DTU Science Park with support from Jyske Bank.
- Since 2014, Danish Tech Challenge has accelerated more than 180 startups, which have collectively raised 2.7 billion DKK in funding, created around 1,500 jobs, and today, two out of three export to foreign markets.
- Apply to be a part of Danish Tech Challenge here.
Globale ambitions
The potential for the solution is enormous.
In hospitals everywhere, nurses spend time flushing IV lines when patients need to be treated with intravenous medication. However, the pressure on the healthcare system often means that not all lines are flushed, which results in patients not receiving the intended dose of medication.
Droplet IV has therefore developed a technology that automatically flushes IV lines. This frees up healthcare personnel from many minutes of extra manual work each day and ensures proper treatment of the patient.
The program at DTU Science Park and Danish Tech Challenge provided momentum for Droplet IV. Shortly afterward, the founders successfully raised funding for their growth journey from sources such as BII (BioInnovation Institute). Today, the founders expect to launch the technology on the market by 2025.
“The product is fully developed and set to hit the market next year. We are targeting the U.S. market because it’s faster to enter compared to the European market for medical devices”, says Victor Tore Chrom Allerup.
In January, the startup gained regulatory momentum in the U.S. by being accepted into the FDA’s Safer Technologies Program, which supports innovative medical devices reaching the U.S. market more quickly.
Most recently, the Danish entrepreneurs were accepted into the prestigious and globally recognized accelerator, MedTech Innovator, whose selected startups receive approximately 30 percent of all medtech funding worldwide.
Therefore, their ambitions are unmistakable.
“Now, we first need to prove that there is a market. So, we’re taking it step by step, as you should in a startup. But there’s no doubt that our product has the potential to be sold in the millions. So, our vision is to get out as quickly as possible to as many people as possible”, says Tore Victor Chrom Allerup.
The article has been published in collaboration with TechSavvy.
