For many, making a phone call has become something to avoid in any daily task, even to make an appointment with the dentist. Aware of this situation, the Barcelona startup Kokuai has launched a platform that connects clinics and patients through WhatsApp, to streamline procedures such as scheduling, changing and confirming appointments, and receiving reminders and feedback after the visit.
Kokuai, which for now focuses on the dental sector, uses WhatsApp to facilitate this relationship between the center and the user as much as possible. However, behind the simplicity of using the messaging app, there is advanced software that includes AI-powered virtual assistants and automations that allow clinics to digitize contact with their patients. Thus, Kokuai not only aims to improve the patient experience, but also to facilitate the management of the centers.
With its platform, the startup currently works with more than a hundred dental clinics, and aims to triple this figure to 300 by 2025: "We want to consolidate ourselves within the dental sector as the leading platform in patient experience," defends the company's CEO, Albert Mendieta.
Kokuai sets this goal after two years of trajectory. Mendieta, Roger Comas and Joan Gallego embarked together in 2021 on a consulting project to automate customer service and support, but in 2023 they evolved the project and launched their first conversational platform via WhatsApp, aimed at companies in any sector. Later, by gradually introducing themselves into various sectors, they detected that the health sector had a lot of potential.
"It is a sector that uses many manual resources to contact its patients, with many calls and many inefficiencies, and we decided to bet on this area," Mendieta recalls. Kokuai's first "success experiences" came in the dental sector, so they chose to focus all their resources on it: "We have been adapting our solution for a year and a half and commercializing it mainly with dental clinics."
To facilitate this communication with patients, the platform "couples with the clinic's management system" to automate contact with patients. In addition, Kokuai also allows launching reminders and patient reactivation campaigns when the database detects that a date is approaching when they should return for a visit. The platform, which has a monthly cost of between 150 and 250 euros for clinics, has a staff of nine people. So far, Kokuai has raised close to half a million euros in funding rounds, the last of which raised 260,000 euros in September.
With these resources, Kokuai plans to expand its focus to new areas within the health sector, although it will continue to prioritize dental clinics for now. In addition, it is studying implementing new functionalities, such as admission forms, launching consultations, and facilitating the payment of visits.
"The platform is in permanent construction and evolution; we have a very extensive road map of new functionalities," highlights Mendieta. And it is that, "as you delve into the sector, shortcomings emerge that can be resolved through automations," to which the startup wants to respond through its technological platform.