Doctolib keeps growing in Bavaria

The French start-up community in Bavaria is growing: Doctolib expanded from is German head office in Berlin to Munich at the beginning of the year. The company enables patients to book, cancel and organise an appointment with a doctor free of charge and round the clock using the online platform or Doctolib app. An additional bonus: thanks to the automatic appointment reminders by SMS or email the consultation does not get forgotten. The appointment is booked in the doctor’s calendar in real time. Booking outside opening hours is particularly attractive for patients: just under 40 percent of the appointments on Doctolib are booked before or after the opening hours or at the weekend. Doctors and medical establishments pay a monthly fee for the booking service which makes the tiresome issue of arranging appointments much easier.

The company has become the market leader in France in just three years and in the meantime employs 300 people in 35 towns. At the start of the year the company received fresh capital in the millions to continue expanding and continuously improve the software for doctors and patients.

A French success story comes to Bavaria

The service that is already used every month in Europe by more than 21,000 doctors and more than 8.2 million patients is currently taking off successfully in Germany: users can already select from hundreds of doctors and arrange an appointment online in Berlin. Patients from Munich have now also been able to rely on support when arranging a doctor’s appointment since March. From orthopaedics, homeopaths and dentists to paediatricians and or course general practitioners – doctors from a whole range of specialist areas can already be booked using Doctolib in the Bavarian capital.

The network is to be rapidly expanded so that other regions in Bavaria besides Munich will also benefit from this convenient service soon. This is at the top of the Munich team’s agenda: “Munich is just the start, we are working hard to ensure that Doctolib is implemented at many more doctors, health centres and hospitals in Bavaria and throughout Germany. In the long-term we would like to be the market leader for medical online appointment bookings in all European countries,” says Simon Krüger, co-founder and Managing Director of Doctolib in Germany. There is more about the Doctolib story and a practical test in the Bayerische Rundfunk TV feature.

Digital Digital pioneers from France successful in Bavaria

Doctolib is totally on trend: a number of French companies now established in Bavaria (since 2015) come from the future sector of digitalisation and cover IT services, IoT, big data and e-commerce, including the successful start-ups Sigfox, Lengow, imakumo, Mirakl und Movework as well as the start-up accelerator Starburst and the IT security company Wallix. Decathlon also selected Munich as the first location in Germany for its new Connect store concept.