South Central Ventures (SCV) announces to invest 600.000 euros in the Croatian startup LittleDot – a mobile health platform that connects parents to pediatricians and other specialists in real-time, and ensures that parents get verified advice and track their child’s health progress 24/7.
The investment, as stated in the announcement, will help LittleDot to further develop their application and ease the contact between the experts and the parents. Additionally, the LittleDot team is working on new services and plan not only to strengthen their presence in Croatia but to set operation in South-Eastern Europe and Western Europe as well.
“We, as LittleDot team, are very pleased and at the same time excited that our partner, South Central Ventures has put faith in our vision, team and company. We are looking forward to achieving exponential growth in targeted markets and we expect high satisfaction from our current and future clients”, said Dario Šimović, CEO of LittleDot.
According to SCV Managing Partner, Jure Mikuz, this application will significantly improve the quality of people’s life and will save many sleepless nights to the worried parents.
“We are thrilled to join Dario and his team at LittleDot. We strongly believe that mobile technologies can significantly improve the quality of people’s lives if utilized properly. I am sure LittleDot will save many parents’ sleepless nights even on their trips far away from their pediatricians and other medical specialists,” said Jure Mikuž, a Managing Partner at South Central Ventures.
Founded in 2006 in Zagreb Croatia, by Dario Šimović (CEO) with the assistance of the renowned Croatian pediatrician Dr. Milivoj Jovančević (CMO), LittleDot is a healthy baby growth diary app designed to make health record and provide useful information of growth, development, immunization and fever.
The platform offers 3 services to parents: 1) Shortly written consultation via SMS 2) A call with a pediatrician, or 3) A second opinion. In all three services, parents can choose a specialist who they want to get in touch with.
SCV, on the other hand, is a 40 million euros fund dedicated primarily to early stage and growth investments. Within the fund’s ‘seed pocket’, € 1.5 million is allocated for investments of up to 100.000 euros per company. The majority of the fund is allocated for early stage and growth investments of up to 3 million euros per company. These investments are intended to fuel the international business expansion and growth of the most promising tech startups that can show traction and prove their potential to “make it big”.
Why LittleDot?
According to the press release made by the SCV telemedicine market is expected to significantly grow at 18.3% annually between 2014 and 2025. In the world of the increased number of smartphone users and the digital solution, parents want prompt answer/solution to assist them with their needs and the needs of their child.
Moreover, according to Croatia statistics, there is a great lack of pediatrician – 1 pediatrician in this country covers over 950 children, very similar to the situation globally.