Cross-Border HealthTech Venture Builder
Full name of the project: Cross-Border HealthTech Venture Builder
Small Project Fund Beneficiary: HAMAG-BICRO
Duration of the project: April 1, 2025 – April 1, 2026 (12 months)
Lead partner: NetHub (E.C.H.R. d.o.o.), Croatia (Contact e-mail: contact@nethub.hr)
Project partners: Cherka Company d.o.o., Bosnia and Herzegovina; Brain Code d.o.o., Montenegro
External collaborators on the project: Healthcare providers and MedTech companies from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro
Total value: 83.692,52 EUR
Grant amount: 71.138,64 EUR (85 %)
About the project: The Cross-Border HealthTech Venture Builder project aims to accelerate healthcare innovation in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro by developing and piloting a cross-border Venture Building programme. The programme will connect MedTech companies and healthcare providers to co-create new health-focused ventures, addressing unmet needs through targeted support, mentoring, and early-stage business development. Using a corporate platform model, the project fosters collaboration between industry and healthcare providers, starting with orthopedics and expanding to other areas. It strengthens regional innovation capacities and lays the foundation for sustainable HealthTech ecosystems across borders.
Project activities:
- HealthTech Venture Building programme development
- HealthTech Venture Building programme pilot implementation
The project began with a Kick-off Meeting on April 4th in Mostar, bringing together project partners from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. During the meeting, the team defined implementation steps and agreed on task distribution for the initial two months of the project.
The first project milestone has been successfully reached, with the first project deliverable, Joint report on the needs of end users (healthcare providers) and sponsors (industry), has been finalized.
As part of this milestone, stakeholder workshops were held in all three countries, engaging both healthcare providers and MedTech companies. These workshops provided valuable insights into pressing healthcare challenges and opportunities for innovation. The findings have been combined into a joint report that will serve as the foundation for the co-creation of the cross-border Venture Building programme in the upcoming project phase.
Project update – November 2025
Following the successful completion of the first project milestone, the Cross-Border HealthTech Venture Builder project continued with intensive collaboration across all three partner countries.
Coordination meeting in Podgorica
On October 31st, the project partners held a coordination meeting in Podgorica. The meeting focused on reviewing progress to date, aligning upcoming activities, and preparing the final content and structure of the pilot programme. Partners also discussed key elements of the Demo Day concept planned for 2026, including the involvement of healthcare providers and MedTech sponsors.
Milestone 2 achieved
The project has now successfully reached its second milestone. As part of this stage, two major outputs have been completed:
Draft curriculum and educational materials for healthcare providers
These materials are designed to help clinical staff understand the fundamentals of innovation within healthcare settings, including how to identify and articulate unmet clinical needs, structure an effective project team, and apply simple early-stage innovation tools.
Draft value proposition pitch deck for MedTech sponsors
The pitch deck outlines the benefits of participation in the cross-border programme, detailing how companies can collaborate with healthcare institutions, validate solutions, and co-develop innovations within real clinical environments.
Both drafts will be further refined and finalised with inputs from healthcare providers and industry partners in the next stage of the project.
Project update – March 2026
Following the successful completion of the second milestone, the Cross-Border HealthTech Venture Builder project entered its final implementation phase, focusing on pilot delivery, validation, and finalisation of programme outputs.
Demo Day in Split
On February 20, the project culminated in a Demo Day held in Split, marking the final stage of the HealthTech Venture Building programme. The event brought together healthcare professionals, project partners, and stakeholders from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro.
Five venture-building teams presented their innovation concepts – two teams from Croatia, one team from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and two teams from Montenegro.
The presented solutions addressed concrete healthcare challenges and demonstrated the ability of participants to transform clinical needs into structured innovation proposals.
The pitching sessions enabled direct exchange of experiences, as well as concrete feedback from an expert jury, with a focus on clinical applicability, market potential, and further development steps.
First place for the best pitch was awarded to Viktor Vegan (Croatia) for a solution introducing an automated system for standardized, faster, and safer preoperative preparation of the leg in knee orthopaedic procedures. Second place went to Damir Franjić (Bosnia and Herzegovina) for a concept of a digital system for monitoring endoprosthesis implantation and clinical outcomes, aimed at improving quality of care. Third place was awarded to Ivana Obradović (Montenegro) for the development of sterile single-use surgical sets made from recyclable materials, with the goal of increasing patient safety and reducing the risk of hospital-acquired infections.
Coordination meeting in Split
On the same day, project partners held a final coordination meeting in Split to review the overall implementation of the programme, discuss key findings, and align the finalisation of all project outputs.
Final programme outputs and materials
Following the pilot implementation and feedback collected from healthcare providers and MedTech companies, all key project outputs were finalised:
- final curriculum and educational materials for healthcare providers
- final Value Proposition Pitch Deck for MedTech companies
The final outputs reflect both the initial needs identified during the project and the practical experience gained through programme implementation.
With the completion of the third milestone, the Cross-Border HealthTech Venture Builder project has been successfully concluded.