Gosta Labs, a healthtech startup based in Helsinki, has raised €7.5 million in a seed funding round to expand its AI-driven oncology operating system globally. This milestone funding, led by Voima Ventures and supported by COR Group, Reaktor, the Aho family, and other angel investors, marks a significant step in tackling the administrative inefficiencies faced by oncologists worldwide. As a serial entrepreneur and advocate for women in STEM, I find Gosta Labs’ journey fascinating, showcasing precisely how strategic funding and innovative solutions can shift paradigms in complex fields like healthcare.
The platform under development is designed to assist oncology professionals by automating documentation and structuring data. According to the company, their system reduces documentation time for follow-up patient visits to less than two minutes while maintaining guideline-compliant medical standards. The ultimate goal? To enable doctors to spend more time with patients and less time inputting data into systems. It’s an audacious approach to addressing one of the most time-consuming pain points in the field of oncology.
What We Can Learn from Gosta Labs’ Funding Success
Gosta Labs is not just an inspiring company for healthtech founders but also offers lessons for entrepreneurs across industries. Here's what caught my attention:
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A Clear Problem-Solution Fit
Gosta Labs identified a major pain point, administrative work overburdening oncologists, and created a simplified solution addressing it directly. The combination of data structuring, automation, and compliance with clinical guidelines shows how deep industry expertise can result in targeted innovation. Founders need to ask themselves: what’s the one overwhelming problem your business can simplify? -
Early Validation with Experts
Gosta Labs presented their technology at ESMO 2025, a global oncology congress, ensuring their product was seen by decision-makers in the field. For early-stage startups, demonstrating your value with key industry stakeholders can set the stage for scaling later. -
Bringing the Right Team Together
Lauri Sippola and Henri Viertolahti, Gosta’s founders, previously built another successful startup, Kaiku Health, before its acquisition in 2020. Drawing from that experience, they ensured their venture had strong foundations. For any founder, having complementary skills within your team and leveraging prior experience can boost confidence among investors. -
Building for Global Collaboration
By engaging healthcare partners in Finland, Australia, and Switzerland, Gosta Labs is bridging markets even at the seed level. As entrepreneurs, it’s tempting to stay local until funding scales, but considering global applicability early can open up broader opportunities for investment and expansion.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Seeking Seed Funding
Starting a tech company in a highly competitive landscape, such as healthcare, can be intimidating. But here’s what founders should steer clear of when pursuing investments:
- Putting Off Validation: Focusing too long on building without presenting your product to prospective users could mean iterating on assumptions rather than real-world needs. Early-stage startups must test their ideas in practical scenarios to attract investors.
- Relying Solely on Industry Trends: Startups can fall into the trap of chasing buzzwords, be it AI, blockchain, or fintech, without creating immediate value. Gosta Labs avoided this by addressing oncology-specific challenges.
- Undervaluing Team Expertise: Investors often evaluate the team as much as the idea. Demonstrating deep domain knowledge or a proven track record often reassures potential investors.
- Lack of Focus on Scalability: Even at the seed stage, having a clear roadmap for scaling, especially internationally, can greatly influence funding.
How Female Entrepreneurs in Europe Can Learn from Gosta Labs
As a female entrepreneur myself, I’m often asked how women founders in Europe can navigate a startup world that remains predominantly male. Gosta Labs’ success offers some practical takeaways.
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Be Intentional about Networking
Gosta Labs secured backing from credible investors, including Voima Ventures. Building relationships with investors who understand your sector greatly boosts funding chances. Resources like accelerators and startup networks, such as Yes! Delft, can be instrumental in connecting with the right mentors and partners. -
Don’t Shy Away from Technical Sectors
Healthtech, deeptech, and SaaS may seem intimidating, especially for those without a technical background. But collaboration is key. As in my own experiences blending linguistics with AI and intellectual property, it’s vital to partner with experts who can amplify your vision while you focus on strategy. -
Focus on How You Help Solve a Problem
Women founders often excel at building empathetic products that solve real-world pain points. Gosta Labs’ focus on improving doctor-patient interaction highlights how tapping into unmet needs is a winning strategy for women and men alike. -
Bootstrapping vs. Fundraising
While Gosta Labs chose the funding route, I’ve followed the bootstrap methodology in my ventures, such as Fe/male Switch. There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. Examine your goals before determining whether external funding is necessary or if bootstrapping can give you the freedom to grow on your own terms.
Key Stats That Tell the Story
It’s important to hold onto some hard numbers to truly assess potential:
- Time Saved: Gosta Labs claims a reduction of over two-thirds in time spent on documentation, leaving more time for direct patient care.
- Market Outlook: By 2050, global cancer cases are projected to exceed 35 million annually, underscoring the demand for scalable oncology solutions.
- Fundraising Success: Gosta Labs has raised nearly €10 million in two years, after completing a €1.7 million pre-seed round in 2024.
Final Thoughts
Gosta Labs showcases what’s possible when you combine clear goals, effective teamwork, and early validation. Whether you’re in deeptech or consumer markets, the fundamentals of their success apply. Focus on solving one major problem, understand your audience deeply, and build relationships with supporters who genuinely understand your industry.
For aspiring female entrepreneurs in Europe, stories like this should serve as encouragement to keep pressing forward, building community, and seeking support. It’s an exciting time to create value-powered ventures, not just for the funding, but for the difference you can make. If you’re working on something ambitious, there’s never been a better time to share it with the world.
FAQ
1. What is Gosta Labs and what does it specialize in?
Gosta Labs is a Helsinki-based healthtech startup specializing in developing an AI-driven operating system for oncology professionals to improve efficiency and enhance patient care by automating clinical documentation and structuring data.
Explore Gosta Labs
2. How much funding has Gosta Labs secured so far?
Gosta Labs has raised nearly €10 million in total funding, including a €7.5 million seed round in 2025 and a €1.7 million pre-seed round in 2024.
Check out the details on Tech.eu
3. Who are the key investors in the latest seed round?
The €7.5 million seed round was led by Voima Ventures and included investors such as COR Group, the Aho family, Reaktor, and notable angel investors.
Learn about the funding on Tech Funding News
4. What problem does Gosta Labs aim to solve?
Gosta Labs aims to alleviate the administrative burden on oncology professionals by automating documentation and creating guideline-compliant data, enabling more efficient and personalized patient care.
Learn more about Gosta Labs’ mission
5. How does Gosta Labs improve oncology workflows?
Gosta Labs’ AI operating system helps automate clinical documentation, structures patient data, visualizes patient journeys, and ensures that treatment decisions align with clinical guidelines, reducing documentation time to under two minutes per patient visit.
6. Who founded Gosta Labs, and what is their background?
Gosta Labs was founded in 2023 by Lauri Sippola and Henri Viertolahti, who are also the co-founders of Kaiku Health, a successful startup that was acquired by Elekta in 2020.
Read about Gosta Labs’ founders on HTWorld
7. How is Gosta Labs validating its platform in the medical field?
Gosta Labs presented their AI system at ESMO 2025, demonstrating its real-world effectiveness and ensuring the system meets institutional documentation standards.
Explore Gosta Labs’ ESMO presentation
8. What is the potential market for Gosta Labs’ AI operating system?
By 2050, global cancer cases are projected to exceed 35 million annually, highlighting the need for scalable and efficient oncology solutions like Gosta Labs’ AI operating system.
9. How does Gosta Labs plan to use the €7.5M funding raised?
The funding will be used to scale the AI operating system globally, strengthen its AI foundations, achieve medical device certification, and expand collaboration with healthcare providers in regions like Europe and Australia.
Read about Gosta Labs’ plans
10. What makes Gosta Labs stand out in the healthtech landscape?
Gosta Labs’ focus on oncology-specific AI solutions, global applicability, experienced founding team from Kaiku Health, and early validation through major oncology conferences sets it apart from other healthtech startups.
Find out more about Gosta Labs on StartupResearcher
About the Author
Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
Violetta Bonenkamp's expertise in CAD sector, IP protection and blockchain
Violetta Bonenkamp is recognized as a multidisciplinary expert with significant achievements in the CAD sector, intellectual property (IP) protection, and blockchain technology.
CAD Sector:
- Violetta is the CEO and co-founder of CADChain, a deep tech startup focused on developing IP management software specifically for CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data. CADChain addresses the lack of industry standards for CAD data protection and sharing, using innovative technology to secure and manage design data.
- She has led the company since its inception in 2018, overseeing R&D, PR, and business development, and driving the creation of products for platforms such as Autodesk Inventor, Blender, and SolidWorks.
- Her leadership has been instrumental in scaling CADChain from a small team to a significant player in the deeptech space, with a diverse, international team.
IP Protection:
- Violetta has built deep expertise in intellectual property, combining academic training with practical startup experience. She has taken specialized courses in IP from institutions like WIPO and the EU IPO.
- She is known for sharing actionable strategies for startup IP protection, leveraging both legal and technological approaches, and has published guides and content on this topic for the entrepreneurial community.
- Her work at CADChain directly addresses the need for robust IP protection in the engineering and design industries, integrating cybersecurity and compliance measures to safeguard digital assets.
Blockchain:
- Violetta’s entry into the blockchain sector began with the founding of CADChain, which uses blockchain as a core technology for securing and managing CAD data.
- She holds several certifications in blockchain and has participated in major hackathons and policy forums, such as the OECD Global Blockchain Policy Forum.
- Her expertise extends to applying blockchain for IP management, ensuring data integrity, traceability, and secure sharing in the CAD industry.
Violetta is a true multiple specialist who has built expertise in Linguistics, Education, Business Management, Blockchain, Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, Game Design, AI, SEO, Digital Marketing, cyber security and zero code automations. Her extensive educational journey includes a Master of Arts in Linguistics and Education, an Advanced Master in Linguistics from Belgium (2006-2007), an MBA from Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden (2006-2008), and an Erasmus Mundus joint program European Master of Higher Education from universities in Norway, Finland, and Portugal (2009).
She is the founder of Fe/male Switch, a startup game that encourages women to enter STEM fields, and also leads CADChain, and multiple other projects like the Directory of 1,000 Startup Cities with a proprietary MeanCEO Index that ranks cities for female entrepreneurs. Violetta created the "gamepreneurship" methodology, which forms the scientific basis of her startup game. She also builds a lot of SEO tools for startups. Her achievements include being named one of the top 100 women in Europe by EU Startups in 2022 and being nominated for Impact Person of the year at the Dutch Blockchain Week. She is an author with Sifted and a speaker at different Universities. Recently she published a book on Startup Idea Validation the right way: from zero to first customers and beyond, launched a Directory of 1,500+ websites for startups to list themselves in order to gain traction and build backlinks and is building MELA AI to help local restaurants in Malta get more visibility online.
For the past several years Violetta has been living between the Netherlands and Malta, while also regularly traveling to different destinations around the globe, usually due to her entrepreneurial activities. This has led her to start writing about different locations and amenities from the POV of an entrepreneur. Here’s her recent article about the best hotels in Italy to work from.
About the Publication
Fe/male Switch is an innovative startup platform designed to empower women entrepreneurs through an immersive, game-like experience. Founded in 2020 during the pandemic "without any funding and without any code," this non-profit initiative has evolved into a comprehensive educational tool for aspiring female entrepreneurs.The platform was co-founded by Violetta Shishkina-Bonenkamp, who serves as CEO and one of the lead authors of the Startup News branch.
Mission and Purpose
Fe/male Switch Foundation was created to address the gender gap in the tech and entrepreneurship space. The platform aims to skill-up future female tech leaders and empower them to create resilient and innovative tech startups through what they call "gamepreneurship". By putting players in a virtual startup village where they must survive and thrive, the startup game allows women to test their entrepreneurial abilities without financial risk.
Key Features
The platform offers a unique blend of news, resources,learning, networking, and practical application within a supportive, female-focused environment:
- Skill Lab: Micro-modules covering essential startup skills
- Virtual Startup Building: Create or join startups and tackle real-world challenges
- AI Co-founder (PlayPal): Guides users through the startup process
- SANDBOX: A testing environment for idea validation before launch
- Wellness Integration: Virtual activities to balance work and self-care
- Marketplace: Buy or sell expert sessions and tutorials
Impact and Growth
Since its inception, Fe/male Switch has shown impressive growth:
- 5,000+ female entrepreneurs in the community
- 100+ startup tools built
- 5,000+ pieces of articles and news written
- 1,000 unique business ideas for women created
Partnerships
Fe/male Switch has formed strategic partnerships to enhance its offerings. In January 2022, it teamed up with global website builder Tilda to provide free access to website building tools and mentorship services for Fe/male Switch participants.
Recognition
Fe/male Switch has received media attention for its innovative approach to closing the gender gap in tech entrepreneurship. The platform has been featured in various publications highlighting its unique "play to learn and earn" model.
