The Berlin-based startup Nelly is a mix of a fin- and health-tech provider and currently targets doctors and dentists in Germany, but they have announced expansion plans to Italy already. The initial product is a digital patient onboarding solution: patients receive an email or scan a QR code in the doctor’s office and then provide the necessary information. Nelly ensures that this data is being transferred into the patient management software, basically positioning Nelly as an add-on and not a replacement for the existing software stack. Additionally, Nelly already supports their clients with digital invoicing and factoring solutions, which is basically their current fintech offering.
With the new partnership announcement with Adyen, the fintech product offering will be much more extended. The two companies mention that Nelly will be offering Adyen-powered POS devices, embedding online payments into the user journey, and, most interestingly, bank accounts and cards. I believe its fair to say that many in the German fintech ecosystem were waiting for such an announcement, since Nelly has always advertised itself as a fintech company. Therefore, you might very well argue that they are not a non-financial brand. But let’s not argue about the terms in this case, what matters is that Nelly is an exciting company to follow at the intersection of fintech and healthcare.
Nelly is not the only company that aims to become the financial hub for doctors, a target group that is highly attractive for many reasons. It will be interesting to follow what the winning strategy looks like and what the right mix of financial services and non-financial services looks like for this industry.
