In 2015, the lawyer founded the online medical practice TeleClinic.
(Photo: Teleclinic)
Berlin In her speech, Katharina Jünger had a clear message to young women: “I advise you to start a business as early as possible.” The winner of this year’s Female Founder Award speaks from her own experience. At the age of 30, she has already brought a start-up from founding to exit: the telemedicine service TeleClinic.
Her thesis: women have to develop strong positions in order to make themselves indispensable. Only then will there be a good starting position to start a family and at the same time to remain strong as an entrepreneur. “We have to be as courageous as possible and step on the gas as early as possible,” she encouraged the founders.
Jünger wants to be a role model – because there is a lack of role models. “There will be many moments when I’m afraid that I will make it. There are allegations about how my child will be, ”she said, describing her challenges as an entrepreneur. Women therefore have to look for female mentors – so more women are needed in management positions. “It is difficult for a man to be a close mentor to a woman,” Jünger explained.
The lawyer founded the online doctor’s practice TeleClinic in 2015 together with a doctor and a computer scientist. Adelsschlag was the takeover of the start-up by the Swiss company Zur Rose AG last summer for 43.5 million euros in cash and shares. The early investor Digital Health Ventures (DHV) was able to triple its stake, and the later investor ID Invest also benefited.
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For the jury, however, Jünger’s pioneering work as an entrepreneur for telemedicine in Germany was more important than the financial success: “Hardly anyone has shaken up the med-tech scene in Germany as much as Katharina Jünger.” That pays off not only in the corona pandemic.
Jünger is committed to promoting female founders
At TeleClinic, patients are connected to doctors via video on their smartphones. According to Jünger, TeleClinic receives up to 20,000 consultations with 550 affiliated doctors per month. She promises the doctors an additional income. For example, you could use idle time in practice – without additional bureaucracy.
TeleClinic had started younger when there was hardly any regulation for consultation hours via video conference. “When we founded seven years ago, all of this was still forbidden,” she said in Berlin. That has changed in the meantime.
Under the umbrella of the DocMorris mother, Zur Rose, Jünger hopes for further growth – in particular through more cost coverage by the statutory health insurance companies. Jünger expects the digital recipe in particular to accelerate business. This makes the offer interesting for more and more users.
Jünger wants to remain active in the start-up scene: As an angel investor and in the Chancellor’s Digital Council, she is committed to promoting female founders. “You are helping to lay the foundations for future female founders”, praised Vectoflow founder Katharina Kreitz, last year’s award winner. In her laudation, she said that female founders should become a matter of course: “I hope, yes, I expect that such prizes will no longer be necessary in the future.”
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