Scaling Innovative Ideas

Switzerland just turned its railway tracks into solar power plants. A startup called Sun-Ways installed removable solar panels between active train tracks in Neuchâtel. Special machines can lay 1,000 square meters in hours while trains keep running, generating clean energy without consuming new land. The scale potential grabbed me: if you used this across Germany’s 33,000 km rail network, the system could generate 6.2 TWh a year, which would be enough to power 1.8 million households—just by using the space that’s already there. This is exactly the kind of hardware climate tech that excites me. It solves multiple problems at once: The panels integrate with existing infrastructure, avoiding land use conflicts. They're removable for maintenance. And they generate power where transmission lines already exist. The Swiss transport authority is running a 3-year test to verify track wear and safety. Meanwhile, South Korea, Indonesia, and Japan are exploring similar pilots. Which transport network would you try this on next?

Cities, towns, states, and regions are hubs for innovative, real-world solutions. Take #Liverpool for example. As the world’s first “Accelerator City” for climate action, they have taken impressive measures to rapidly decarbonise the live music and TV/Film production sectors – both vital parts of the city’s economy. Local and regional levels of government - being so closely connected with their communities - are fantastically placed to ensure bolder climate action is effective and inclusive, with everyone having a voice. Local governments also have direct knowledge of exactly what is needed, where exactly it is needed, and how it can be feasible. All while having the power and critical mass to attract investment. Regional and local leaders are key in building a greener, more resilient, more prosperous world for us all. Their role in helping national governments develop stronger national climate plans is essential.

Sustainable Finance Catalysts 🌎 Scaling climate finance requires capital and an enabling system of actors that can align incentives, reduce risks, and mobilize resources at scale. The table developed by S2G Ventures is a great tool to understand the different players within this ecosystem and the roles they can take. Governments are critical. Through regulation, taxation, subsidies and policy signals they shape investment flows. Convening organizations accelerate collaboration. By establishing standards and connecting stakeholders they support the adoption of best practices. Academia and think tanks provide evidence and research. Their independent insights inform asset owners and policymakers. Consultants support strategy. They guide asset owners through change management, design of frameworks and operational alignment. Catalytic capital helps de risk investments. Philanthropy and concessionary finance can crowd in private capital for climate projects. Corporates act as recipients and enablers. They bring knowledge of transition risks and opportunities while offering investable projects. General partners and intermediaries implement strategies. They build track records, design innovative structures and connect asset owners to opportunities. The strength of this system lies in its interdependence. No single actor can scale climate finance alone. Impact emerges when these roles reinforce one another. This perspective reframes the challenge. Climate finance is an ecosystem effort that requires coordination across actors. Recognizing and strengthening these catalysts is essential to mobilize capital at the scale required for the transition. #sustainability #business #sustainable #esg

95% of healthtech startups don’t survive their first real market test. Not because of the product. Not because of funding. But because they misunderstood what the real test even is. Let me explain. Most founders think the test is: Will users try it? Can we grow fast? Does the product work? But in healthtech, the true test is this: Can the market trust you enough to use your product in a clinical workflow, at scale, without hand-holding? That’s where 95% of startups fail. Because healthcare doesn’t reward novelty. It rewards credibility, compatibility, and continuity. Here are 4 brutal truths I’ve learned after 25+ years in this space: 1. Healthcare doesn’t buy tech. It buys trust. Even if your ML model is 95% accurate, it won’t be adopted unless people trust how it works and why it works. If clinicians don’t understand it and decision-makers can’t defend it, they won’t risk patient care or reputations on it. 2. Pilots aren’t validation unless they prove real-world value. A controlled trial is only useful if it demonstrates measurable improvements - like saved clinician time, lower readmission rates, or better outcomes. Without that, it’s just a demo, not validation. 3. Integration beats innovation. If your product forces staff to log into a new system, learn new workflows, or switch between screens - it won’t scale. The best products blend into existing tools and workflows, not break them. 4. Good storytelling doesn’t secure funding. Proof does. You can impress with a flashy deck, but serious investors and clinical buyers want published studies, cost-benefit analyses, and evidence of adoption. Credibility beats charisma - every time. So if your startup fails at the first market test - it probably wasn’t bad tech. It was bad strategy. Too many teams build with optimism instead of realism. If you’re pre-launch or pre-scale, ask yourself: Who exactly will use this every day? Who will approve and pay for it? What will they stop doing once they adopt it? Healthtech isn’t about hacking growth. It’s about building trust - through data, design, and delivery. I’ve seen brilliant teams crash because they built for what should work - Not what actually gets used. You don’t need a better product. You need a better go-to-market reality check. Have you seen healthtech ideas die at the last mile? What caused the failure? #healthtech #founders #startups #innovation

🌍 Accelerating Industry Decarbonization: Collaboration Is the Key The World Economic Forum's latest report, United for Net Zero: Public-Private Collaboration to Accelerate Industry Decarbonization, outlines a roadmap for tackling industrial emissions, which account for 30% of global greenhouse gases. The report highlights the urgent need for collaboration between governments and businesses to overcome barriers like insufficient funding, regulatory fragmentation, and slow technology adoption. 8 key opportunities to accelerate progress: ✨ Understand and leverage public financial mechanisms: Governments must provide tailored incentives like tax breaks and subsidies to make decarbonization projects financially viable. ✨ Engage your sector to co-develop financial mechanisms: Industries should work with stakeholders to design financing models that align with sectoral needs and drive innovation. ✨ Facilitate carbon tracking adoption within your value chain: Promoting standardized carbon measurement tools and tracking systems can improve transparency and drive efficiency. ✨ Contribute to harmonizing carbon accounting standards: Aligning global standards for carbon reporting will reduce costs and improve accountability. ✨ Proactively support net-zero solutions across value chains: Companies must help decarbonize supply chains, particularly by supporting SMEs with knowledge and funding. ✨ Collaborate with governments on value chain decarbonization policies: Businesses should actively shape policies that accelerate emissions reduction while ensuring fairness. ✨ Co-invest in climate technologies and market creation: Joint investment in technologies like green hydrogen and renewables will be key to achieving net-zero goals. ✨ Help create enabling policies for climate technology adoption: Governments and industries must design policies that reduce risks and boost demand for climate innovations. 🌱 My Reflections 💭 1. Mobilizing Consumer Influence Consumers hold untapped power to drive change. A globally recognized "carbon-neutral certified" label could transform purchasing habits. Transparent certifications and awareness campaigns could accelerate demand for sustainable products. 💭 2. Ensuring Equity Across Borders Global supply chains must help developing economies transition fairly. Capacity-building, knowledge-sharing, and financial support can ensure all regions—not just wealthy ones—meet net-zero goals. 💭 3. Fast-Tracking Green Innovation Regulatory bottlenecks remain a major hurdle. An international fast-track mechanism for green projects could streamline approvals and accelerate innovations like green hydrogen and carbon capture technologies. The challenge is immense, but so are the opportunities. What do you see as the most critical steps toward net-zero industries? 🌟 #NetZero #Sustainability #ClimateAction #Decarbonization #Innovation #Collaboration

No Trust, No Transformation. Period. AI is becoming ready for the healthcare frontlines. But without trust, it stays in the demo room. At every conference, HIMSS, HLTH Inc., Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM), and even yesterday’s HLTH Europe’s Transformation Summit tech dazzles. AI, cloud, interoperability...are ready to take the stage. And yet, one thing lingers in every room: TRUST. We celebrate the breakthroughs and innovation, but quietly wonder: Will clinicians actually adopt this? Will patients accept it? It’s unmistakable…If we don’t solve the trust gap, digital tools remain in demo stage, not becoming an adopted solution! This World Economic Forum & Boston Consulting Group (BCG) white paper was mentioned yesterday at the health transformation summit by Ben Horner and was heavily discussed during our round table conversation at the summit. It lays out a bold vision for building trust in health AI and it couldn’t come at a more urgent time. Healthcare systems are under pressure, and AI offers real promise. But without trust, that promise risks falling flat. Here are some of the key points summarized by AI from the report “Earning Trust for AI in Health”: • Today’s regulatory frameworks are outdated: They were built for static devices, not evolving AI systems. • AI governance must evolve: Through regulatory sandboxes, life-cycle monitoring, and post-market surveillance. • Technical literacy is key: Many health leaders don’t fully understand AI’s risks or capabilities. That must change. • Public–private partnerships are essential: To co-develop guidelines, test frameworks, and ensure real-world impact. • Global coordination is lacking: Diverging regulations risk limiting access and innovation, especially in low-resource settings. Why it matters: AI will not transform healthcare unless we embed trust, transparency, and accountability into every layer from data to IT deployment. That means clinicians/hcps need upskilling, regulators need new tools, and innovators must be part of the solution, not just the source of disruption. The real innovation? Building systems that are as dynamic as the technology itself. Enjoy the read and let me know your thoughts…

HealthTech AI won’t work if no one trusts it. And right now, trust is at an all-time low. Everyone’s hyping AI as the future of healthcare. They’re not wrong. AI can improve care, save time, and reduce errors. But only if clinicians trust it enough to use it. And that’s where most HealthTech AI I come across fails. Not at the model. The mindset. Because trust isn’t a feature. It’s the product IMO. 1. Transparency is worthless if it’s selective. Showing clinicians what the AI gets right is easy. Showing them where it fails – that’s where trust is built. Where does the model guess? What inputs skew the result? How often has it been wrong in their context? If you’re not leading with limitations, you’re hiding them. 2. Clinicians don’t trust black boxes. They trust black-and-white accountability. Here’s what they want to know: If this tool gives bad advice, who’s responsible? If it harms a patient, who answers for it? Right now? The answer is often a shrug. Until AI vendors, hospitals, and regulators define shared liability, don’t expect clinicians to stick their necks out. 3. AI that adds steps doesn’t add value. Here’s how most AI tools are pitched: “Look at this amazing dashboard!” Here’s how they’re received: “Great, now I need to open another tab.” Trust is eroded every time AI makes the job harder, not easier. If the tool isn’t embedded directly into existing workflows – and if it doesn’t save time – it’s resisted. 4. Co-design or no adoption. You can’t build trust in a vacuum. If clinicians aren’t involved from day one – not just as users, but as designers – they won’t trust what lands on their desk. They know what they need. They also know what they don’t need: Another solution in search of a problem. Trust scales slower than code. You can’t “move fast and build trust.” Trust takes time. Trust takes proof. Trust takes owning up to what your AI can’t do – especially when everyone else is promising it can do everything. So, how do we close the trust gap? Design for invisibility. The best AI is felt, not seen. Show the flaws first. Don’t wait to be asked. Cut work, not corners. If your AI adds tasks, it subtracts trust. AI can improve healthcare. But it doesn’t matter how powerful your algorithm is, if the people meant to use it don’t believe in it. HealthTech isn’t short of innovation. It’s short of trust. Until we fix that, we’re not improving healthcare. We’re just running more pilots.

15M+ patients 18 FDA-approved products $125M+ funding IPO in sight When I first came across Qure.ai in 2016, they were just a Mumbai-based startup trying to teach machines how to read X-rays. No media blitz. No “move fast and break things” mindset. Just deep work on a hard problem. And today, they’re quietly rewriting what global healthtech scale looks like. What makes Qure.AI worth studying? It’s not just the tech. It’s their philosophy. They’re building like a company that wants to exist in 2050. Founded by Prashant Warier, Qure tackled a problem most startups avoid: How do you scale diagnostics where radiologists are scarce—or overwhelmed—without compromising trust? Instead of chasing adoption through shortcuts, they did the opposite: - Chose medical-grade AI, not demos - Focused on regulatory clearance, not vanity metrics - Took on go-to-market complexity across public systems, pharma, and hospitals - Expanded with intentionality, not headcount Here’s what founders should take away: 1. Trust is the new moat. Regulatory-first is not slow. It’s survivable. Especially in AI, health, or finance. 2. Capital efficiency is culture. ~200 people running a global AI company? That’s design, not luck. 3. Global readiness is not an expansion strategy. With 25% revenue from the U.S., Qure isn’t entering markets. They’re designed for them. The bigger picture: The next generation of global giants won’t all come from Silicon Valley. They’ll be born in Mumbai, Nairobi, and Singapore. In sectors where compliance isn’t red tape—it’s product-market fit. They’ll scale with fewer people, clearer systems, and tighter governance. And they’ll win not because of tech alone, but because they solve for distribution, regulation, and trust—from Day 1. If you're building in a regulated industry—how are you designing for trust before scale? I’d love to hear how you’re approaching it. #FounderLens #HealthTech #GlobalStartups

A brilliant medical technology sits unused eighteen months after FDA clearance because hospitals don't trust its outcomes data enough to build value-based contracts around it. This scenario plays out repeatedly across healthcare, where compliance is often treated as a regulatory checkbox rather than the foundation of trust that enables value-based partnerships. The consequences are devastating – innovative solutions that could transform patient care remain stuck in pilot after pilot while companies wonder why their clinical evidence isn't translating to commercial success. The uncomfortable truth is that in value-based care, governance isn't just about avoiding regulatory trouble. It's about building the confidence that allows partners to stake their financial future on your technology's performance. When a health system's shared savings bonus or a payer's medical loss ratio depends on your solution working as promised, they need more than marketing claims – they need systematic evidence and regulatory approvals validating that your processes are trustworthy. Cutting-edge MedTech companies have recognized this shift. They're implementing AI governance frameworks that detect performance drift before it impacts outcomes. They're creating data provenance systems that make patient-generated information trustworthy for clinical decisions. They're building supply chain oversight that ensures security and reliability throughout their technology's lifecycle. Today's newsletter unpacks Pillar 5 of the Value-Based MedTech framework: a comprehensive approach to governance and compliance that transforms these functions from cost centers to strategic enablers. Read on!   ___________________________________________ Sam Basta, MD, MMM is a pioneer of Value-Based Medical Technology and LinkedIn Top Voice. Over the past two decades, he advised many healthcare and medical technology startups on translating clinical and technological innovation into business success. From value-based strategy and product development to go-to-market planning and execution, Sam specializes in creating and communicating compelling value propositions to customers, partners and investors. His weekly NewHealthcare Platforms newsletter is read by thousands of executives and professionals in the US and globally. #healthcareonlinkedin #artificialintelligence #ai #valuebasedcare #healthcare Vivek Natarajan Tom Lawry Subroto Mukherjee Rana el Kaliouby, Ph.D. Rashmi R. Rao Paulius Mui, MD Avi Rosenzweig Mark Miles Deepak Mittal, MBA, MS, FRM Elena Cavallo, ALM, ACC Chris Grasso  

Some really cool european climate-tech startups, doing interesting things: Northvolt: A Swedish battery manufacturer and Europe’s best-funded climate tech startup. It secured a huge loan to expand its factory in northern Sweden, which will more than double the capacity of Northvolt Ett from 16 gigawatt hours. The total debt and equity raised by the company now amount to $13 billion. Electra: €304 million Series B- Paris-based Electra specializes in EV charging. The funding will be used to expand its network of charging stations across Europe. This round has brought the company to unicorn status. Aira: €145 million (€87 million in Series B in October last year, extended by an additional €58 million). Another Swedish startup supplying heat pumps and home energy tech to consumers. Despite being just over a year old, it has secured significant funding, supported by billionaire entrepreneur Harald Mix and his firm Vargas Holding. New investors include Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek. Soly: €30 million. A Dutch startup, Soly sells and leases solar energy systems. The funding round was led by ArcTern Ventures and Fifth Wall, with participation from Shell Ventures and ABP. Real Ice : Very interesting! A Welsh startup working on technology to refreeze parts of the Arctic ice. Partnering with the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Climate Repair, Real Ice aims to preserve and restore Arctic ice by spraying water drawn from beneath the ice onto its surface. Their approach also involves close collaboration with local communities for insights and knowledge. #climatechange #climatetech #climateaction