Is Your Technology Investable? Lessons from the Other Side of the Table
A technically impressive product is only the starting point. To become investable, a company also needs to demonstrate that it is solving a meaningful problem, that customers care about it, and that the market opportunity is large enough to support the growth investors are looking for.
In this episode, Karolina Liljeroth-Dorozynska shares what she learned from working on the investor side of the table and assessing deep-tech companies for investment readiness. We discuss how founders test their assumptions, identify the right customers, avoid overestimating their market, and build a convincing investment case.Karolina also explains what customer interest and pilot collaborations can signal before revenue arrives, where the Valley of Death appears for hardware companies, and why regulatory and clinical milestones create particular challenges for MedTech. We also discuss what makes a pitch deck stand out, how founders should choose the right investor, and why a company name deserves a culture check before entering a new market.About Karolina Liljeroth-DorozynskaKarolina Liljeroth-Dorozynska is a deep-tech advisor, investor and founder of Kadido. With a background in physics and experience as an investment manager at imec.xpand, she has worked at the intersection of science, technology, entrepreneurship and investment.Links • Karolina on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/karolina-liljeroth-dorozynska-505043b3 • Kadido: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kadido-ab/posts/?feedView=all • Referenced fund: https://www.imec-int.com/en/what-we-offer/venturingWalk the Valley is a PsychWiser project, produced by Katalin Vikuk.
23 Sept 2026
EHR Integration: A Technical Challenge or a People Problem?
Today, almost anyone can build a health app. Getting that app to communicate with the systems healthcare already uses is another matter entirely.
In this episode, Katalin Vikuk speaks with Helena Holma, medical doctor, CEO and co-founder of Leyr, about the fragmented world of electronic health records and the hidden obstacles facing HealthTech companies trying to integrate with them.
Helena explains why interoperability is not merely a technical challenge, why gatekeeping can be harder to overcome than the technology itself, and why Leyr is building a single integration layer connecting HealthTech products with multiple EHR systems.
They also discuss the difficult journey from a PowerPoint presentation to a live customer, the importance of recognising which customers are genuinely committed, the dangers of providing unpaid consultancy, and why understanding healthcare’s financial incentives often comes down to one simple principle: follow the money.
About Helena Holma
Helena Holma is a medical doctor, specialist in internal medicine, and CEO and co-founder of Leyr.
After working clinically for ten years at a large emergency hospital in Stockholm, she moved into HealthTech and experienced first-hand how difficult it was to connect new digital products with electronic health records.
Leyr provides a unified API that allows HealthTech companies to connect their products with multiple EHRs, EMRs and patient-journal systems without building and maintaining every integration separately.
Chapters
00:00 From medical doctor to HealthTech founder
02:11 Discovering the hidden complexity of healthcare
03:50 Who pays for EHR integration?
05:42 Leyr’s customers and use cases
06:51 Anyone can build a health app—but can it enter healthcare?
07:27 The fragmented EHR landscape
08:26 Building one API for multiple EHR systems
10:30 Leyr’s two-sided market challenge
11:45 Operating across Nordic healthcare markets
12:27 The European Health Data Space
13:19 From PowerPoint to the first live customer
14:37 Why integration is not merely a technical problem
16:25 Knowing when to cut your losses
16:54 Antler, bootstrapping and the need for funding
18:37 The shortage of soft funding for Swedish HealthTech
20:11 The most important number Helena tracks
20:40 Decisions that slowed Leyr down
21:21 The danger of unpaid consultancy
22:07 The founder mindset: trying one more time
23:19 The interoperability blind spot nobody discusses
24:25 Fundraising and Leyr’s global opportunity
25:43 Founder advice and following the money
Resources mentioned
Leyr: https://leyr.io/
Connect with Helena Holma: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenaholma/
Antler: https://www.antler.co/
General Data Protection Regulation — official text: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj/eng
European Health Data Space — European Commission overview: https://health.ec.europa.eu/ehealth-digital-health-and-care/european-health-data-space-regulation-ehds_en
About Walk the Valley
Walk the Valley explores what happens between promising healthcare innovation and real-world adoption. Through candid conversations with founders, investors, experts and operators, we examine the regulatory, clinical and commercial obstacles that determine which innovations reach patients.
Subscribe for more conversations from inside healthcare’s valley of death.
Host: Katalin Vikuk
Guest: Helena Holma
Produced by: Walk the Valley
Walk the Valley is a PsychWiser project.
This conversation is intended for general information and reflects the speakers’ experiences and understanding at the time of recording. It does not constitute legal, regulatory or investment advice.
10 Sept 2026
AI Act: Constraint or Competitive Advantage?
What does it take to build a medical AI product when the technology is advancing faster than the regulatory framework around it? Katalin Vikuk speaks with Anette Wolff, QA/RA Manager at Medviso, about how the EU AI Act interacts with the MDR, the difference between closed and continuously learning algorithms, and why validation, documentation and regulatory maturity increasingly affect investment, procurement and hospital adoption. They also examine whether regulation disproportionately favours larger companies—and whether compliance can become a competitive advantage.
AI Act: Constraint or Competitive Advantage?
What does it take to build a medical AI product when the technology is advancing faster than the regulatory framework around it?In this episode, Katalin Vikuk speaks with Anette Wolff, QA/RA Manager at Medviso, about what the EU AI Act means in practice for medical-device companies. They explore the interaction between the AI Act and the Medical Device Regulation, the regulatory difference between closed and continuously learning algorithms, and why validation, data traceability, cybersecurity and documentation are becoming commercially important—not just compliance exercises.
Anette explains why regulatory uncertainty affects startups differently from large incumbents, why clinicians may not be the main barrier to hospital adoption, and why involving regulatory expertise early can become a competitive advantage.
About Anette Wolff
Anette Wolff is QA/RA Manager at Medviso, a Swedish medical-technology company developing software for quantitative MR and CT image analysis and advanced medical 3D modelling. Her work spans regulatory strategy, quality management and compliance for AI-enabled medical-device software across international markets.
Resources mentioned
Medviso: https://medviso.com/
Connect with Anette Wolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anette-wolff-1843a94/
EU Artificial Intelligence Act — official text: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj
EU Medical Device Regulation — official text: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2017/745/oj
ISO/IEC 42001 — AI management systems:https: //www.iso.org/standard/81230.html
Reuters investigation mentioned in the episode: https://www.reuters.com/investigations/ai-enters-operating-room-reports-arise-botched-surgeries-misidentified-body-2026-02-09/
About Walk the Valley
Walk the Valley explores what happens between promising healthcare innovation and real-world adoption. Through candid conversations with founders, investors, experts and operators, we examine the regulatory, clinical and commercial obstacles that determine which innovations reach patients.
Subscribe for more conversations from inside healthcare’s valley of death.
Host: Katalin Vikuk (https://psychwiser.com/)
Guest: Anette Wolff (https://www.linkedin.com/in/anette-wolff-1843a94/)
Produced by: Walk the Valley (https://www.walkthevalley.com/)
This conversation was recorded in June 2026 and reflects the regulatory landscape and the speakers’ understanding at that time. It is intended for general information and does not constitute legal or regulatory advice.
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