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Founder Interview

How Oro Health Raised a $3M Seed Round at a $13M Post-Money Valuation Before Its First Outside Customer (Interview with Co-Founder Emilie Bourgeault)

Interview Date
December 14, 2021
Interviewee
Emilie BourgeaultCo-Founder
Watch
Watch the full interview

Company Metrics at Interview Time

Revenue Share from Dermago (Dec 2021)

$75K/mo

Valuation, post-money (2021)

$13M

Seed Round (2021-12)

$3,000,000

Team Size (2021)

17

Historical Snapshot

These figures come from Emilie Bourgeault's December 2021 interview with Nathan Latka and are a historical snapshot, not current numbers. No currency is spoken anywhere in the recording and Oro Health is based in Montreal, so the dollar amounts are reproduced exactly as they were said. The revenue reaching Oro Health at the time was a 50% share of the revenue of Dermago, a clinic the same founders own as a separate company; revenue from outside SaaS customers was zero. See Oro Health’s current numbers.

Key Takeaways

  • 01Oro Health closed a $3,000,000 seed round in December 2021 at a $13M post-money valuation
  • 02Oro Health's only client, Dermago, is a dermatology clinic the same founders own as a separate company; it pays Oro Health 50% of its revenue under a Master License Service Agreement
  • 03Dermago, the founders' own clinic, billed about $150,000 a month seeing patients; half of that, roughly $75,000 a month, flowed to Oro Health under the license agreement. Oro Health had no revenue from outside SaaS customers
  • 04The team grew to 17 people with the tech built entirely in house, led by CTO Bruno Morel, who joined the previous September
  • 05The original MVP for Dermago was built by an outsourced Quebec City dev shop for $20,000 to $30,000 in 2017
  • 06Oro Health was co-founded by three partners who split the equity roughly evenly before the round
  • 07Emilie Bourgeault names Alex at MCI as one of Oro Health's investors
  • 08Oro Health plans to pursue a Series A rapidly after demonstrating commercial traction on its new platform launched in late November 2021

Company Metrics at Time of Interview

MetricValueSource
Monthly Revenue Share from Dermago (2021-12)$75,000Founder interview, Dec 2021
Valuation (post-money) (2021)$13MFounder interview, Dec 2021
Seed Round Raised (2021-12)$3,000,000Founder interview, Dec 2021
Team Size (2021)17Founder interview, Dec 2021
Dermago Clinic Revenue per Month — Separate Company, Same Founders (2021)$150,000Founder interview, Dec 2021
MVP Development Cost$20,000 to $30,000Founder interview, Dec 2021
Revenue Share Dermago Pays Oro Health — Related Party (2021)50%Founder interview, Dec 2021
Founder Equity, 3 Co-Founders, Before the Seed Round (2021)~33% eachFounder interview, Dec 2021

Growth Breakdown

Revenue

At interview time all of Oro Health's revenue came from one payer: Dermago, a dermatology clinic the same founders own as a separate company. Under a Master License Service Agreement, Dermago pays Oro Health 50% of its revenue; Dermago was billing about $150,000 a month, so roughly $75,000 a month reached Oro Health. Revenue from outside SaaS customers was zero — the founder agreed the company was pre-revenue on the SaaS model.

Customers

Oro Health had one paying client at interview time, Dermago, and Dermago is the founders' own clinic operating as a separate company. The second clinic on the platform, a virtual STI clinic, is also theirs — they launched it a few months before the interview. No outside clinic had bought the platform yet.

Team

Oro Health had grown to 17 people by December 2021, all in-house. CTO Bruno Morel joined the previous September and built out a team combining developers and data scientists. The company had moved away from the outsourced dev shop used for the original MVP.

Funding

Oro Health closed a $3,000,000 seed round in December 2021. The round valued the company at $10M pre-money and $13M post-money. The founders planned to use the capital to accelerate technology development and commercialization ahead of a Series A.

Growth Strategy

Their Own Clinic as the Proof Case

Dermago is the founders' own dermatology clinic, run as a separate company, and its IP became Oro Health's product — the team took what Dermago had built and made it into a platform other clinics could run on. Migrating Dermago onto the rebuilt platform at the end of November 2021 was the first live deployment, and Dermago's success is what the founders point to as evidence the model works.

White-Label Platform for Physicians

Oro Health positioned itself as a turnkey platform allowing any physician or specialty clinic to launch an online presence quickly. The model targeted physicians who lacked the time or expertise for marketing and technology, offering a plug-and-play solution modeled on Dermago's success.

Founder-Led Go-to-Market

Her pitch to other clinics is not just the software but the operating knowledge behind Dermago — user acquisition, and how to organize a clinic so it earns more per month — built up over the two or three years the founders spent running it. Dermago's own clinic revenue, about $150,000 a month, is the proof point behind that pitch. As of the interview the company had done no trade shows.

Inbound Demand Before Launch

According to Emilie Bourgeault, Oro Health had physicians and clinics approaching them before the new platform was ready, suggesting organic demand that the team deliberately held back until the product was complete.

Series A as Commercialization Catalyst

The team planned to use the seed round to prove platform efficiency and build a commercialization team, with the goal of moving quickly into a Series A to fund broader market expansion across jurisdictions and specialties.

Best Quotes

“So, the doctor doesn't learn to code. The doctor has an idea and then hires coders to build the SaaS tool, basically.”
“They don't do coding, like you said, and they don't also do Google AdWords or online marketing. So, what we offer is, it's more of a PaaS, but a business turnkey PaaS.”
“So, we do have an MSLA, a Master License Service Agreement between our MVP and our new tech company.”
“Because we do have a good environment for tech in Montreal. So, we have a lot of good candidates and we wanted to really build something that was the highest security standards and something that would be, you know, our own group.”
“I think we need to demonstrate that Well, we've already demonstrated that our MVP is successful. So, you know, there's a product and there's a demand. Now we need to show how efficient our tech is and we need to show how, you know, we haven't done any really trade shows or anything so far. So, we've had a lot of people knocking on our door without, like, basically trying to put the phone down so that we didn't have to answer because we didn't have a product.”
“Just keep going and great things are going to happen. You don't have to have a specific plan. You can change your mind. I started, you know, in political science in school, and I changed to science. So, you just keep going with the flow and keep working hard and things are just gonna happen.”

What Happened Next

This interview caught Oro Health shortly after it closed a $3M seed round and launched the rebuilt platform it had just migrated Dermago onto at the end of November 2021. At that point the only clinic paying to use the software was Dermago itself, a separate company the founders own, and the second clinic running on the platform, a virtual STI clinic, was theirs as well, so no outside clinic had bought the product yet. The team stood at 17 people and planned to move quickly toward a Series A once it could show commercial traction. Visit the Oro Health company profile on GetLatka for current metrics and any subsequent funding or growth milestones.

View Oro Health’s current profile and metrics

Full Transcript

Chapters

Introduction and Emilie's Background

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey folks, my guest today is Dr. Bourgeault. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree from McGill University before returning to Ontario to study at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. In 2011, she received her doctorate medicine and then completed a five year specialization in dermatology at Laval University. She co founded Oro Health in 2020 to help with asynchronous telemedicine specializing in dermatology. Dr. Bourgeault, you ready to take us to the top?

Emilie Bourgeault

00:23>> Yes, definitely. Thanks for the invitation.

How a Doctor Builds a SaaS Product

Nathan Latka

00:25You bet. Okay. So how does a doctor learn to code to build a SaaS tool?

Emilie Bourgeault

00:30>> So, the doctor doesn't learn to code. The doctor has an idea and then hires coders to build the SaaS tool, basically.

Nathan Latka

00:37Makes a lot of sense. Now, there's a lot of doctors that have these great ideas and they never know how to motivate, lead, or find someone to actually write the code. Tell me about how you got your MVP built.

Building the MVP: Dermago Origins in 2017

Emilie Bourgeault

00:47>> Yeah. So, what happened was that in 2017, one of my co founders, Doctor. Dore, who's another dermatologist, him and his brother were having these discussions about how to increase access for patients for dermatology. So, you know, they had this idea, we decided to bring it to the forefront and use technology to increase access for patients. So, we hired a small firm of developers in Quebec City and we presented them with our idea and we worked for

01:20>> a few months to develop our MVP, which is called dermago.ca.

MVP Cost and Early Development

Nathan Latka

01:25Interesting. Okay. Can I ask you how much you paid the dev shop to get the MVP off the ground?

Emilie Bourgeault

01:31>> How much did we pay? We probably paid about $20,000 to $30,000 out of pocket just to get this MVP out. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

01:39And what year was that?

Emilie Bourgeault

01:41>> 2017.

Nathan Latka

01:432017. Okay, very cool. And then talk to me about today. Who's buying this technology and about how much are they paying per month to use it?

Emilie Bourgeault

01:49>> Yeah. So basically what happened is that throughout, you know, once we released Dermago in 2018, we started doing consultations and that's pretty much how we paid for our tech is by seeing patients. And we slowly but surely increased the amount of volume of patients on our site. And at the same time, we had other people, other physicians, other clinics saying, Hey, we'd like to have a tool, a similar white label tool for our clinics, for our

Why Dermago's Success Became Oro Health

Emilie Bourgeault

02:18>> specialties. And when we created this MVP, there was no, you know, plug and play sort of like the Shopify of medicine that you could just, you know, have a clinic online within a few days based on your image, based on your colors, based on your specialty. So, we decided to create Oro Health because of the success of Dermago to provide this possibility for other physicians and other healthcare professionals.

Nathan Latka

02:46So, that's who you're selling to?

Emilie Bourgeault

02:47>> Yeah. So, what we did is we took all the IP from Dermago and decided to create the best dermatology platform to be able to offer it in different jurisdictions, different countries for dermatology, but at the same time, concentrate on building a scalable platform that is white label and can be used by any other specialty if they want to create their own online clinic.

Nathan Latka

03:16And what do these online clinics pay to use a technology per month on average?

Emilie Bourgeault

03:19>> So, we were modelizing it actually. So, we're still in the, you know, we just raised a seed round to make this tech. So, we rebuilt the whole tech and we just released our new platform at the end of November. So, we migrated our old Dermago onto this new platform and now we're starting our commercialization plan to go and have new Dermagos across the world. Basically, we do have a few announcements to make in the new year

03:52>> and also to start our more white label.

Seed Round Size and Pre-Revenue SaaS Status

Nathan Latka

03:55And so, doctor, what was the size of the seed round?

Emilie Bourgeault

03:58>> 3,000,000.

03:583,000,000. Okay. Wonderful. And is it fair to say that you guys are pre revenue in terms of a SaaS model, Yeah.

04:06>> I would say our major client right now is Dermago. And we also launched another clinic which called Tonteste Poinciere, which is a virtual STI clinic.

Nathan Latka

04:17Okay. So, Dermago product, which really is seeing patients, making money off seeing patients, how much revenue did that do last year to help support the new software?

Dermago Revenue and the 50% License Agreement

Emilie Bourgeault

04:26>> We make about $150,000 per month.

Nathan Latka

04:32Okay, got it. So that, I mean, that's nice scale. You know, now, did the investors respect that when you went out for the seed round? Did they give you credit for selling that much even though it wasn't SaaS?

Emilie Bourgeault

04:41>> So, what happened is that, you know, because Dermago is a medical clinic, so Dermago is a medical clinic that uses the technology of oro. So, we do have an MSLA, a Master License Service Agreement between our MVP and our new tech company.

Nathan Latka

04:55Separate companies, though.

Emilie Bourgeault

04:56>> Separate companies.

Nathan Latka

04:57And

Emilie Bourgeault

04:59>> Dermago so is definitely the biggest client of Oro Health as of now.

Nathan Latka

05:04How much does Dermago pay Oro Health?

Emilie Bourgeault

05:06>> 50% of its revenue.

Nathan Latka

05:08Oh, wow. So, $75,000 a month already on Oro Health.

Emilie Bourgeault

05:12>> Yeah. So, what we Our modelization for dermatology and specialty clinics is that, you know, I mean, physicians are busy, they're busy seeing patients and they need to see patients. That's, you know, that's what they do, right? They don't do coding, like you said, and they don't also do Google AdWords or online marketing. So, what we offer is, it's more of a PaaS, but a business turnkey PaaS. So, you want to start a dermatology clinic in Texas?

05:43>> Well, you come see me and we can plug and play. Have-

Nathan Latka

05:45You know, doctor, that makes complete sense. And it's your, you're an operating system for anyone that wants to launch, it's fantastic. But just to be clear, your model is not going to be to take 50% of everyone's revenue signs up for you. You just did that with Dermago because you own that business and you want to give a sweetheart deal back to Oro Health. Is that right?

Emilie Bourgeault

06:01>> We do it with Dermago because Oro Health also takes care of all the user acquisition.

Nathan Latka

06:06So, you going to charge 50% ongoing to new customers that are not you?

Emilie Bourgeault

06:09>> So, it depends if they want us to do the user acquisition and the ad buying. That includes If the ad buying, the they want to do a white label, you know, they're in, you know, their family medicine clinic and they want to also have an online presence, which we see that there's an increase in these types of physicians with pandemic. And our bet is that everyone's going be online within the next few years. Then they can

06:31>> be, you know, it can be a monthly I more see. Or a

One Customer Today: Dermago

Nathan Latka

06:34>> But one customer today, Dermago.

Emilie Bourgeault

06:36Yep. Amazing. Okay. Love this story.

06:39>> There's Dermago and then there's yourtest.ca, which is an STD clinic that we just launched a few months ago. So

Nathan Latka

06:45But but the way to think about Oro Health revenue today is 50% of Dermago's, which is about $75,000 a month in revenue. Exactly. Amazing. Okay. So you raise a 3,000,000 seed round. Most people are selling 10 to 20% of the business in those rounds. Did you do the same? It was around there?

Emilie Bourgeault

06:59>> Around there. Yes.

Seed Round Valuation and Use of Funds

Nathan Latka

07:00Okay. So talk call it like 20 to $30,000,000 post money valuation, something like that.

Emilie Bourgeault

07:04>> We have a So, valuation is at 10,000,000 pre 10,000,000.

Nathan Latka

07:09Okay. So, 13,000,000 post. That's not that's not horrible. Where are you gonna use the money?

Emilie Bourgeault

07:13>> So, for the tech. So, the acceleration of the tech. And it's a hard time to hire people in tech. So, if anyone needs a job, we're hiring.

Nathan Latka

07:22There's the promoter, the doctor turns to marketer.

Emilie Bourgeault

07:26>> Exactly. And we want to, you know, push the commercialization. So, we want to go into a series A rapidly to just bring it to the next level in terms of a commercialization team.

Team Size and In-House Engineering Decision

Nathan Latka

07:37What's the team today? How many people?

Emilie Bourgeault

07:39>> We're 17 now.

Nathan Latka

07:40Many engineers?

07:43And are you still using that same original agency you used to do the MVP?

Emilie Bourgeault

07:46>> No, it's all in house.

Nathan Latka

07:48Okay. Why'd you make that decision?

Emilie Bourgeault

07:50>> So, we decided to really keep the tech in house and, you know, create Because we do have a good environment for tech in Montreal. So, we have a lot of good candidates and we wanted to really build something that was the highest security standards and something that would be, you know, our own group. So, we hired our CTO, Bruno Morel, which he's been with us since last September, and he slowly but surely built his tech team

08:18>> so that we have, you know, the best developers mixed with some great data scientists so that we can work together as a team.

Go-to-Market and the Founders' Equity Split

Nathan Latka

08:28And doctor, what's your go to market? I imagine you're eating your own dog food. So, you can go speak at conferences for these people and say, by the way, I'm using my own software to build Dermago, which already does $175 a month in revenue. You should copy me, use my software. Is that sort of the go to market?

Emilie Bourgeault

08:42>> And not only my software, but also my business intelligence that we've, you know, created over the last two, three years. So, with our user acquisition and with how to basically organize their clinics so that they can make an extra amount of revenue per month.

Nathan Latka

08:58I love this. Do you own a 100% of the business before you raise? Are you the sole founder?

Emilie Bourgeault

09:03>> We're three.

Nathan Latka

09:04Oh, three of you guys. Did you just split it 33 each?

Emilie Bourgeault

09:07>> Pretty much.

Nathan Latka

09:09You didn't wanna debate each other. Just said, you know what? We're all equal, 33 each. Exactly. Alright. Fair enough. Now you guys each own approximately like 27% each and the investor owns, call it 10 to 15%, and you're thinking hard about what the Series A could look like. Exactly. Very cool. What do think you need to do to go out and raise a competitive Series A?

What Oro Health Needs to Raise a Series A

Emilie Bourgeault

09:29>> I think we need to demonstrate that Well, we've already demonstrated that our MVP is successful. So, you know, there's a product and there's a demand. Now we need to show how efficient our tech is and we need to show how, you know, we haven't done any really trade shows or anything so far. So, we've had a lot of people knocking on our door without, like, basically trying to put the phone down so that we didn't have

09:56>> to answer because we didn't have a product. So, now we have our product and I think, you know, we do have a great plan for the next six months. And if we just stick to our plan and we make things happen the way they're supposed to happen, then we're going to go straight into a great Series A

Famous Five: Books, CEOs, and Tools

Nathan Latka

10:11love this. All right, doctor, let's wrap up with the famous five.

10:13>> Number one, favorite book.

Emilie Bourgeault

10:15>> Favorite book.

Nathan Latka

10:21>> What- man.

Emilie Bourgeault

10:23Can skip that episode.

10:24>> The Croda, there's a- I don't remember it, but it's- I love Reese Witherspoon's book club. So, any book that she suggests, I basically read one a week.

Nathan Latka

10:35I love that. Okay. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Emilie Bourgeault

10:40>> Is there a CEO that I'm I know that So one of our investors, Alex from MCI, we really respect him a lot. So, you know, he really wants to bring a specific tailored medicine to patients. So, we really love what he's doing and we keep following him.

Nathan Latka

10:58And doctor, what's your favorite online tool for building Oro Health?

Emilie Bourgeault

11:02>> My favorite online tool, I would say my team's favorite tool is Slack, which I'm learning, but I'm definitely learning in this process. It's not stuff that we learned in medical school or residency. So, I would say to keep in contact with all of my my team throughout the day would be Slack.

Nathan Latka

11:19Very cool. And number four, how many hours of sleep do get every night?

Emilie Bourgeault

11:23>> I typically get at least seven.

Nathan Latka

11:25That's great.

11:26>> And situation, married, single kids?

Emilie Bourgeault

11:28>> I'm married with two kids.

Nathan Latka

11:30Oh, wow. Busy. And do you mind me asking how old you are?

Emilie Bourgeault

11:33>> I'm 36.

Nathan Latka

11:34>> 36.

11:35Last question. Take us home. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Advice She'd Give Her 20-Year-Old Self

Emilie Bourgeault

11:43>> Just keep going and great things are going to happen. You don't have to have a specific plan. You can change your mind. I started, you know, in political science in school, and I changed to science. So, you just keep going with the flow and keep working hard and things are just gonna happen.

Nathan Latka

11:59Guys, she hustled. She got her doctorate. She launched her own facility, Dermago, back at clinic back in 2017. Now does $150,000 a month in revenue and said, you know what? I need to build software so that anyone else can do what I just did. She's now built that, raised a $3,000,000 seed round at a 13,000,000 post money valuation to scale that up. 50% of the clinic's revenue goes to Oro Health, the software company. So the software company

12:21is already doing almost $1,000,000 run rate right now, looking to scale, add on additional people, 17 people on the team, eight full time engineers in house, got the MVP built with an outsourced dev shop for $20,000. She's scrappy. I love it. Doctor, thanks for taking us to the top.

Emilie Bourgeault

12:34>> Thank you very much. Have a good day.

Nathan Latka

12:37One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM Central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM

13:02Central. Additionally, remember these recorded Founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM Central. To make sure you don't miss any of that, make sure you click the subscribe button below here on YouTube, the big red button, and then click the little bell notification to make sure you get notifications when we do go live. I wouldn't want you to miss breaking news in the SaaS world, whether it's an acquisition, a big

13:24fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement or something else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you want to take this conversation deeper and further, we have by far the largest private Slack community for B2B SaaS founders. You want to get in there. We've probably talked about your tool if you're running a company or your firm if you're investing. You can go in there and quickly search and see what people are saying. Sign

13:46up for that at nathanlatka.com/slack. In the meantime, I'm hanging out with you here on YouTube. I'll be in the comments for the next thirty minutes. Feel free to

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13:55thought about this episode and if you enjoyed it, click the thumbs up. We get a lot of haters that are mad at how aggressive I am on these shows, I do it so that we can all learn. We have to counter those people. We got to push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys'support. Alright, I'll be in the comments. See you.