Ditto, a Rotterdam-based HealthTech startup that has developed a free app that translates complex medical information into plain language, has raised €7.6 million for its European rollout.
The round was led by Heal Capital, with participation from Optiverder and Rubio Impact Ventures.
“No patient should have to guess what was just said. We are fundamentally turning the thinking in healthcare around: starting not with the institution, but with the patient. Our ambition is for all Europeans to better understand their care journey at the most vulnerable moments in life. It should be as easy as opening Google Maps today, where you once struggled with a paper map held upside down on your lap,” said Tobias Polak, co-founder, Ditto.
Founded in 2024 by Tobias Polak, Bart Voorn, and Merlijn van Breugel, Ditto helps patients and their families make sense of what was said in a medical consultation. The app has been available free of charge since the summer of 2025 via ditto.care, the App Store and Google Play.
The company states that conversations with doctors are often brief, and when difficult news is delivered, part of the brain shuts down. This results in uncertainty with patients being unable to explain what happened at home, and family members unsure of how to assist.
Ditto claims to be the first app to address this problem from the patient’s perspective using AI. The company states that with the Ditto app, patients gain greater control, clarity and a better grasp of their care journey, while healthcare professionals spend less time on repetition and follow-up questions.
The patient records the consultation using the Ditto app or takes a photo of a letter from their doctor. Within minutes, a clear summary is generated, which can be translated into simple English, Turkish or Arabic if required. The summary can be reviewed at the patient’s convenience and securely shared with family, without any central data storage.
Explaining the privacy and data security features the company offers, Ditto says that it has a privacy-by-design approach to how it handles data. It claims that it can never read or access what the user does or stores in the app, and that the app is protected by biometric login or passcode.
“Your health information never leaves your phone unless you choose to share it or get an AI summary. After processing, we delete all data on our side, such that only the summary on your device remains. We don’t store medical data on our servers,” mentioned the company.
Ditto also states that it never trains on the user data and uses EU infrastructure only. The audio is transcribed in the Netherlands by NEN-certified Juvoly, and AI summaries are generated on EU-based Azure servers. The company is GDPR and AVG compliant in its handling of personal data.
Dr Lucas Mittelmeier of Heal Capital said, “Hundreds of startups build AI that help doctors document and manage their work. Ditto builds the equivalent for patients, and its traction proves they have hit a nerve. We believe this will become the European platform for how people navigate their care.”
With this fresh capital, the company plans to invest in European expansion and new features to support patients and those around them: from the right questions to ask before a consultation to a visual care journey that guides both patient and family.
The company reported that nearly one hundred thousand people have downloaded the app since its launch last summer. The Dutch Patients’ Federation has adopted the initiative, and Menzis, a health insurer, is the first to recommend Ditto to all its policyholders, it states. Recently, Ditto also won the 2026 Dutch National Healthcare Innovation Award, an initiative by Zorginnovatie.nl and sponsored by ING.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/05/rotterdams-ditto-raises-e7-6-million-to-make-what-did-the-doctor-say-easier-to-answer/
