EIC and Clariane partner to push digital and clinical innovations into care settings

Brussels, June 13th 2025

Summary

›On 11-12 June the European Innovation Council ran a Corporate Day with Clariane to connect 14 EIC-backed healthtech start-ups with corporate decision makers.
›Start-ups pitched solutions spanning AI diagnostics, non-invasive monitoring, mental health tech, workflow automation and cold plasma wound care.
›The activity was organised through the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme and included tailored one-on-one meetings and post-event support to help convert pilots and commercial deals.
›EIC emphasises corporate-startup matchmaking as a route to scale but major barriers remain including clinical validation, procurement pathways, privacy and reimbursement.

EIC and Clariane convene startups to test care innovations with large-scale operators

On 11 and 12 June the European Innovation Council (EIC) hosted Clariane, a major European group active in care, healthcare and hospitality, together with 14 EIC-backed start-ups. The two-day Corporate Day combined short presentations, targeted one-to-one meetings with senior Clariane staff and technical specialists, and follow-up support from the EIC Business Acceleration Services. The activity is part of the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme, which is designed to accelerate deals, pilots and investment between deep tech start-ups and large corporate partners.

Clariane:Described in the event materials as a leading European community for care, healthcare and hospitality, Clariane operates at scale across institutional care settings. The company is positioned as a potential launch customer and implementation partner for technologies that improve care quality, staff workflows and operational efficiency.

EIC Corporate Partnership Programme:A matchmaking and acceleration programme run by the EIC to create structured interactions between EIC-backed innovators and large European corporations. Since 2017 the programme has run dozens of initiatives with major corporates and reports a track record of meetings, pilots and deals aimed at helping startups scale faster through corporate clients and partners.

What happened on the ground

Selected EIC-backed companies were pre-screened by Clariane and trained by the EIC to refine their pitches. Each company presented its solution to a room of Clariane executives and specialists and then took part in tailored one-on-one discussions. The format emphasised concrete next steps such as pilot projects, procurement conversations or investment interest rather than purely promotional pitches. The EIC committed to providing post-activity assistance to address deal-blocking issues and to help convert commercial conversations into pilots and contracts.

Sophie Boissard, CEO of Clariane, framed the collaboration as purpose-driven: trialling technologies that can improve care quality and reduce burdens on staff. Stéphane Ouaki, acting Director of EISMEA, opened the pitching session and emphasised human-centric innovation, saying technology must serve people and that Clariane and the EIC-backed scaleups were well aligned on that objective.

The innovators and their focus areas

The 14 participating EIC-backed companies brought a mix of hardware, software and hybrid solutions. Technologies on show included AI diagnostic tools, wearable biosensors, breath-based screening, portable EEG, digital therapeutics, cold plasma wound care and workforce optimisation platforms. Below is a structured list of the companies and the applications they pitched.

Company	Country	Core technology or approach	Primary use case in care
BENETE	Finland	AI-supported mental health assessments and therapeutic monitoring	Screening and tracking of mental health in care populations
BESTHEALTH4U	Portugal	Skin-adherent biocompatible wearables	Continuous patient physiological monitoring
BIOMEDICAL LAB	Italy	AI-powered screening tools	Chronic disease diagnostics and triage
BOYDSENSE	France	Non-invasive breath-based diagnostics using AI	Metabolic or disease state monitoring and risk stratification
BRAINCAPTURE	Denmark	Portable EEG with AI analysis	Neurological disorder diagnostics and decentralised EEG
BRAINTRIP LIMITED	Malta	Cognitive biomarker analysis	Early dementia screening
COGVIS	Austria	Smart camera systems with edge AI	Fall detection and prevention in elderly care
GENETIKAPLUS LTD	Israel	Genomics-driven AI for medication matching	Personalised psychiatric medication selection
MODE SENSORS	Norway	Wearable biosensors	Hydration and continuous vitals monitoring
PRECORDIOR	Finland	Smartphone accelerometer cardiac monitoring	Cardiac rhythm and condition monitoring at point of care
SOOMA	Finland	Digital therapeutics and non-invasive neuromodulation	Treatment for depression and chronic pain
TERRAPLASMA	Germany	Cold plasma medical device	Wound care and infection control
WALK WITH PATH EUROPE	Denmark	Assistive wearables for gait and neurological rehab	Rehabilitation support and fall reduction
WORK PILOTS	Finland	On-demand staffing and workflow platform	Flexible staffing, shift filling and workforce optimisation

Key technologies explained

Portable EEG and NeuroAI:Portable EEG devices record electrical brain activity outside specialist labs. When combined with AI algorithms, they can flag patterns associated with neurological conditions and provide quicker triage. Clinical adoption depends on signal quality, reproducibility, clinician workflows and validated diagnostic claims.

Breath-based diagnostics:Exhaled breath contains volatile organic compounds that can correlate with metabolic or infectious states. AI models trained on breath signatures promise non-invasive screening. The field is promising but sensitive to confounding variables and requires robust clinical validation.

Wearable biosensors:Adhesive or wearable devices can continuously track hydration, heart rate, movement and skin state. For care homes and hospitals they offer continuous monitoring without invasive procedures but raise issues of data management, integration with clinical records and alert fatigue.

Cold plasma wound therapy:Cold atmospheric plasma is used topically to inactivate microbes and promote wound healing. It is a device-based therapy that requires clear regulatory classification, clinical evidence of benefit over existing standards and compatibility with wound care protocols.

Digital therapeutics and neuromodulation:App-based therapies and non-invasive neuromodulation aim to treat conditions such as depression or chronic pain without drugs. They must demonstrate clinically meaningful outcomes in controlled studies and then integrate into care pathways and reimbursement models.

Voices from the event

Clariane’s CEO Sophie Boissard framed the collaboration as a way to 'accelerate the development of impactful solutions, improve care quality, and make life easier for our employees while enhancing operational efficiency.'

Stéphane Ouaki, acting Director of EISMEA, opened the pitching session and argued that Clariane’s human-centric mission aligns with the EIC’s emphasis on technology that serves people and dignity.

From the startup perspective attendees reported tangible value. Nelson Oliveira, CTO of BESTHEALTH4U, said the EIC support made direct access to Clariane executives possible, something their own resources could not have achieved. Jesper Thuestad Jacobsen, Business Development Manager at Mode Sensors, highlighted technical feedback from sensor engineers and optimism about securing a deal after refining their pitch.

Programme mechanics and track record

EIC Business Acceleration Services and Corporate Partnership Programme:The Corporate Day with Clariane is part of the EIC Business Acceleration Services. The Corporate Partnership Programme has run multiple initiatives since 2017. The EIC reports organising 80 initiatives with over 120 corporate partners including ABB, Airbus, BMW, CaixaBank, CommerzBank, Enel, Ferrovial, L'Oreal, Medtronic, Neste, Roche, Saint-Gobain, Shell, Siemens Energy, Solvay and Telefonica. More than 1,200 EIC-funded startups and scaleups and over 2,500 corporate representatives have taken part, and participants report measurable business impacts, follow-ups and deals.

The EIC offers curated scouting, coaching, pitch training, bespoke matchmaking and post-event support intended to help remove obstacles during negotiations and pilot procurement.

Where the friction lies

Corporate-startup events help create introductions but do not guarantee scale. Several persistent challenges stood out in the context of healthcare and long-term care innovation.

Clinical validation and evidence:Pilots and procurement in care settings require robust clinical evidence, ideally through peer-reviewed studies or structured real world evaluations. Many early-stage solutions need more than proof of concept to be reliably adopted at scale.

Procurement and payment models:Public and private purchasers in Europe operate under complex procurement rules. For start-ups to win pilots and contracts they must align with tender processes, provide value for money arguments and often demonstrate budget neutrality or savings over time.

Privacy and dignity in care settings:Solutions that use cameras, continuous sensing or genomic data must address privacy, consent and data governance. This is especially sensitive in long-term care where residents may have limited capacity to consent.

Integration and workflow:Even technically strong products can fail on adoption if they do not integrate with clinical workflows, electronic health records and staff routines. Interoperability and low set-up burden matter.

Practical next steps for moving from pilot to procurement

For corporates and startups that want to convert conversations into deployment, the most important actions are realistic roadmapping, early alignment on success metrics, staged pilots and clarity on regulatory and reimbursement timelines. The EIC provides follow-up support to help with those steps but sponsors and care operators must also be prepared to allocate implementation resources and legal support for data agreements.

Recommendations for startups

Be explicit about regulatory status, clinical evidence needs and commercial milestones. Offer a staged pilot design with measurable outcomes, and prepare integration guides for clinical teams. Understand procurement windows and be ready to adapt commercial terms for pilots in public health settings.

Recommendations for corporates

Clarify the buyer journey for innovations within your organisation. Commit to concrete pilot timelines and evaluation criteria. Offer startups clear technical contacts and budget holders to shorten procurement cycles and reduce ambiguity.

Why these corporate-startup pairings matter for Europe

Europe’s health and care systems face demographic pressure and workforce shortages. Bringing new technologies into routine care can increase safety and address capacity gaps if implemented with rigour. The EIC-Corporate Day model provides a repeatable mechanism for early engagement between deep tech innovators and large purchasers. Its success will depend on whether these initial conversations can be translated into well designed pilots, clinical validation and sustainable procurement pathways.

The Clariane collaboration illustrates the EIC’s strategy of pairing high-potential start-ups with scaled clinical operators to accelerate diffusion. The event is consequential if it helps create replicable supplier pathways inside large care providers and produces evidence that justifies broader adoption.

Further information and how to engage

The Corporate Day was organised under the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme and the EIC Business Acceleration Services. The programme runs open calls for corporates and posts opportunities through the EIC Community platform. Participating corporates typically sign a declaration of intent and commit resources for pilots and follow-up. The EIC also publishes a newsletter for updates on calls and opportunities.

Post-activity support:After the event EIC offers targeted help to startups and corporate partners to address negotiation and commercialisation roadblocks and to prioritise pilots that can lead to longer term contracts.

This Corporate Day was another example of the EIC’s ongoing effort to accelerate deep tech adoption in healthcare. The immediate measure of success will be a set of pilots and procurement conversations that progress into concrete agreements, and the medium term test will be whether any of the participating solutions can demonstrate measurable improvements in care outcomes, staff workload and operational costs.