Your journey spans mechanical engineering, medical devices, and entrepreneurship. What motivated you to focus specifically on hearing health, and how did your experiences with Biodesign Finland and Hyperion Robotics shape your vision for Otos Health?
My time at Hyperion Robotics was a deep dive into startup culture, where I co-founded a venture and learned the nuances of launching and running a business. Through that experience, I also realized how much I valued my medical technology background. Shifting back into medtech felt natural—it aligned with my strengths and gave me a clearer sense of impact.
Initially, I found working in the medical device space somewhat isolating with limited support networks back in 2011, when we were pitching a point-of-care diagnostics platform – called BioZen. Biodesign Finland changed that by providing practical resources and mentorship. More importantly, it introduced a problem-driven innovation model. Instead of starting with a promising technology, we began by defining a critical unmet need in hearing health. That approach formed the foundation for what would become Otos Health. Now, Otos has spun out of Aalto University and incorporated in the US and Finland, beginning operational activity in Chicago while continuing R&D in Helsinki.
You’ve mentioned that “hearing connects us to people.” How has this philosophy influenced the development of Otos Health’s mission and its flagship product, Otoscreen?
Hearing is essential for human connection, not to detract from sign language, which is equally essential for people who use it. It’s how we process speech nuances and maintain social bonds.
When hearing declines, everyday interactions can become challenging, whether they occur in-person or over digital platforms like video calls. Recognizing this has made us deeply mission-driven: we want to ensure nobody has to lose the ability to engage in stimulating conversations simply because they didn’t have access to early, affordable hearing care.
That said, our focus is on early detection that leads to action without any friction.
Our launch product, with the project name Otoscreen, embodies this philosophy by streamlining the basic checks—like audiometry and otoscopy—so they can be made available at scale.
This opens the door to earlier detection and intervention, bridging the gap between patients and the clinicians who can help them.
Otos Health aims to make hearing care as simple as getting glasses from an optician. How does Otoscreen simplify the current hearing care pathway, and what impact do you envision this having on patients and clinicians?
The key is to separate the bulk of age-related hearing loss cases, from every other hearing health condition. Much like an optician’s quick vision test, Otoscreen condenses core hearing evaluations into a straightforward workflow. It automates traditional audiograms and visual ear inspections so they can be performed quickly and consistently by a wide range of healthcare professionals, not just audiologists.
We will integrate with primary care workflows, addressing the shortage of trained audiologists by enabling nurses/technicians to do screening and refer a larger amount of relevant patient to audiology and ENT specialists.
For patients, this means faster results, more convenient access, and less waiting.
For clinicians, it frees them up to focus on complex cases and personalized patient care, all while collecting reliable, standardized data that can be shared across care teams.
The diagnostic process for hearing loss has traditionally been slow and resource-intensive. What specific technologies or processes does Otos Health use to reduce testing time by 50% and enable parallel testing for multiple patients?
We focus on two critical tests—basic audiometry and otoscopy—and automate as many steps as possible. By removing unnecessary procedures and streamlining dataflow, Otoscreen can handle multiple patients in parallel, all without sacrificing accuracy.
Our approach leverages user-friendly software, standardized hardware, and intuitive workflows. This combination allows even non-specialists to administer tests, lowering staffing needs while maintaining clinical reliability.
How does Otos Health ensure that its solutions are scalable and adaptable for different healthcare systems globally, particularly in underserved regions?
We focus on universally recognized, essential tests. The audiogram and otoscopy are core components of any hearing evaluation, regardless of geography. By providing a simplified yet robust version of these diagnostics, we make it easier for healthcare systems to integrate Otoscreen—even those with limited resources.
Partnerships with local programs and organizations also help us tailor our solution to regional challenges, ensuring that scalability isn’t just about technology but about meeting genuine clinical and infrastructural needs.
The global shortage of ENT specialists and audiologists highlights the need for automated solutions. What challenges have you faced in introducing automation to such a specialized field, and how have you overcome them?
A primary concern in audiology is that automated tools might devalue the unique expertise of specialists. We address this by clarifying that automation handles the routine screenings, while freeing clinicians to tackle complex diagnoses and advanced treatment plans.
We’ve worked closely with experts to ensure our workflows align with established best practices, and we emphasize the irreplaceable human element—clinicians remain at the center of patient care, particularly when discussing test results and treatment options.
As you are in the U.S. market and work toward FDA approval, what do you see as the biggest hurdles in navigating regulatory requirements and building partnerships with healthcare networks?
The FDA pathway is often more straightforward for startups than the increasingly complex MDR process in Europe, but it still requires significant time and resources. We’re diligently working to meet safety, efficacy, and data security standards.
Securing partnerships with healthcare networks involves demonstrating both clinical benefit and financial viability. We want to ensure our technology is reimbursable, easy for clinicians to adopt, and clearly beneficial for patient outcomes.
Collaboration has been a cornerstone of Otos Health’s development, from Biodesign Finland to Health Incubator Helsinki. How do these partnerships shape your strategy for innovation and commercialization?
These collaborative ecosystems, of which Spark Finland and Creative Destruction Lab deserve to be mentioned as well, have offered mentorship, funding opportunities, regulatory guidance, and market access. They’ve allowed us to validate our technology with real-world data and adapt our business model iteratively.
Essentially, partnerships help us strike the right balance between clinical rigor and commercial feasibility—ensuring we’re always moving toward a solution that works both clinically and as a sustainable business.
What drives you?
A deeply philosophical question that I am trying to truly understand myself. I believe everything a person does falls into two fundamental categories: what we need in order to function and what we need in order to grow. I am fortunate to have the people, infrastructure, and resources around me that allow me to function, because I prefer to focus my energy on growth-related task.
I love to learn, I love to build, and I love solving problems. I am driven by growth and continuous improvement; as soon as things get “comfortable”, I need the next problem to work on. For now, the problem is global prevalence of unaddressed hearing loss.
Hearing loss disproportionately impacts the elderly, often leading to cognitive decline and social isolation. How does Otos Health address the broader societal impacts of untreated hearing loss, and how do you plan to communicate this value to potential investors and partners?
Hearing loss is closely tied to reduced quality of life, cognitive changes, and social withdrawal. By detecting hearing loss early, we help maintain connections that keep people intellectually and socially engaged, especially as they age.
This has downstream benefits for mental health and overall healthcare costs. We highlight these impacts—backed by both clinical research and economic data—when speaking with investors and partners, emphasizing that the global burden of untreated hearing loss is close to a trillion dollars annually.
Who or what has shaped who you are?
Curiosity has always been a defining part of my nature, sometimes to a detriment. I am a firm believer in the effects on the environment on development, and I have been privileged to be able to experience a life with both constrains and possibilities, as well as role models and cautionary examples.
I have been shaped by early exposure to technology, growing up with adaptive Kenyan culture that integrated into a Finnish environment, and being surrounded by friends and family that have enriched my life in so many ways.
Formational memories have been e.g. observing computer hardware modification; having unsupervised access to our shared 286 PC at the age of 7, traveling to different parts of the world, and often being (at least a little bit) different in a group yet always finding a group where I fit in. These points being driving forces for aspiring to build a truly global company.
Lately, the people and mentors who have been supporting us on out Otos journey have drilled the habit of *evidence before ego*: clinical need, regulatory path, unit economics. This is shaping me into a more evidence driven and goal oriented entrepreneur that I need to be in order to grow with the company we are building.
Could you share something about yourself that few people are aware of (anything – could be a hobby, etc.)?
I have broken bones, gotten electric shocks, pulled more overnight work sprints than I dare to admit. I like extreme sports and team sports, rugby being the last sport that combine the elements of both.
These days I do less sports than I dare to admit. But when I have a chance to head to the gym for some physical maintenance or to the slopes to experience the freedom of snowboarding, I’ll take it.
With a focus on raising pre-seed funding and spinning out of university support, what are Otos Health’s top priorities for the next 12–18 months, and how do you see the company evolving in the next five years?
After massive effort stretched to spin out and launch a company that is global from day one, we have gotten support from Nordics Science Investment to finalize key partnerships, and solidify our regulatory strategy and kick off our go-to-market strategy execution.
Now we are raising further funding to execute our go-to-market strategy at a meaningful pace and with sustainable momentum. We’ll also continue refining our technology to ensure it meets real-world clinical needs.
Over the next five years, our goal is to become a global leader in hearing screening—standardizing early detection, facilitating timely referrals, and empowering both patients and clinicians.
In doing so, we envision an elevated position for audiology as a well-integrated and fairly-compensated medical profession, while truly making hearing care, proactive, straightforward, and actionable.