Up against 64 global HealthTech Startups, Plano has emerged as the winner of Galen Growth's World's Most Innovative HealthTech Startup 2020 Award. For this year's tournament, Galen Growth expanded the list of promising early stage startups beyond Asia, to include competition from the United States, Europe, the Middle East in addition to Asia, which every year, brings thousands of voters to support their favourite startup.
"We are very grateful to every single person who voted for Plano and equally grateful to Galen Growth for bringing together and acknowledging so many HealthTech startups from across the globe. I personally see this outcome as a win not just for Plano and its team but also for Singapore as a nation which continues to lead the world in supporting and empowering entrepreneurship," said Plano's Founding Managing Director Associate Professor Mohamed Dirani.
Plano is the first spin-off from the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI)-Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC) Ophthalmic Technologies Incubator Programme. Founded in September 2017, Plano seeks to address myopia, which is a major public health challenge affecting an estimated 2 billion people today and will affect a projected 5 billion (half of the world's population) by 2050.[1]Plano launched the world's first science-based parental control application, planoApp, with a vision to "Keep all eyes healthy in our digitised world". Today, Plano has an ecosystem comprising planoApp, planoEyecheck, planoShop and planoKids, that offers a wide range of eye health wellness solutions for all kids, parents and adults.
Professor Wong Tien Yin, Medical Director of the Singapore National Eye Centre said, "For a small country, Plano's win is truly amazing for Singapore. This award will accelerate our ambition and consolidate our position in the global HealthTech and digital medicine space. For SNEC and SERI, this is a testament to our ability to develop cutting edge technology that has real-world relevance and it will allow us to continue our fight against myopia, one of the most pressing public health problems for future generations of children and adults."
Galen Growth is the global leader in digital health intelligence, analytics and matchmaking, empowering global Fortune 500 companies and institutional investors to fast track their growth strategies. They nominated 64 of the most promising early stage HealthTech startups from across the globe; screened for their business momentum based on its proprietary HealthTech Alpha assessment matrix, which led to weeks of closely fought battles where well-known ecosystem names, thriving new startups and previous winners competed against each other. The six single-elimination rounds format through public votes led to innovative startups such as Biofourmis being awarded this sought-after trophy in 2017, followed by Halodoc in 2018 and Hello Health Group in 2019.
Plano's win was announced on 13 Nov 2020 at the 5th annual Galen Growth HealthTech Summit, which is dedicated to digital health across the globe. After achieving the coveted HealthTech Award, Associate Professor Mo Dirani had the unique opportunity to showcase Plano to all the movers and shakers of the HealthTech ecosystem.
"Every year, the tournament helps to bring the HealthTech ecosystem together by allowing them to campaign for support and votes. With the enormous numbers of votes received every year, the tournament also signals to an ever-vibrant and competitive ecosystem. Throughout the tournament, we saw tremendous support for Plano. The founding team of Galen Growth still remembers Mo, the Founding Managing Director of Plano, back when we were at the same co-working space not so long ago. It was fantastic to see the growth and success of Plano since its beginning in 2017. We are thrilled about their future as they continue to potentially touch millions of patients' lives through education, awareness and digital solutions to transform digital eye care. As we head to 2021, the Galen Growth team is looking forward to continuously support the HealthTech startups that are transforming healthcare around the world," said Julien de Salaberry, CEO and Founder of Galen Growth.