Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem do you solve?
Aleksandr Gorbunov, Co-Founder Muunai: Our goal is to free doctors from bureaucratic tasks and give them more time for patients. At Muunai, we’re developing a modern AI platform that automates administrative tasks to a large extent and acts as an intelligent assistant accompanying doctors through their workday.
Our first focus is on documenting patient conversations. Currently, doctors spend an average of over two hours per day on this. With Muunai, documentation is created directly from the patient conversation and is completed when patients leave the room. With the time gained, doctors can focus entirely on their patients.
Munich Startup: But that already exists!
Aleksandr Gorbunov: The medical software market in Germany is extremely outdated and dominated by a handful of major players. In recent years we’ve seen many digitalization approaches, driven especially by the popularity of language models. There are also some documentation assistants that offer a one-size-fits-all solution for all types of doctors, but from our perspective, in the heterogeneous practice landscape, they’re not valuable in the long term.
That’s why we work closely with doctors from various specialties to optimize Muunai specifically for different medical fields and make it personalizable to the individual workflows of individual doctors.
From hackathon to startup
Munich Startup: What’s your founding story?
Aleksandr Gorbunov: The idea for Muunai came about after a hackathon. The challenge at the time didn’t have a medical connection, but we saw how much is possible today with modern technology, especially with AI. Shortly after, we talked with a friend who was studying medicine. She told us how high the documentation burden is in healthcare and we immediately knew what we wanted to work on.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Aleksandr Gorbunov: I’d say the biggest challenge was building a production-ready product from an MVP that actually provides value to doctors. Doctors have (rightfully) high standards for documentation quality, and our goal is to offer the best documentation on the market. However, our current challenge lies in scaling our sales. To have the greatest possible impact, we naturally want to provide as many doctors as possible with access to Muunai, and so we’re working hard over the next few months to optimize our sales system.
We’re already very proud of what we’ve achieved so far and there’s still an exciting path ahead of us to fully realize our vision.
A real game changer in daily practice
Munich Startup: Where do you want to be in one year, where in five years?
Aleksandr Gorbunov: Our main goal for the next year is to bring Muunai to more doctors so they can noticeably ease their daily work. In one year we want to reach at least 3,000 doctors. At the same time, we want to integrate our tool even better with existing practice software.
In five years we want to realize our vision and fundamentally modernize the way practices structure their daily work. Muunai should become a true assistant for doctors. We want to support treatment, prepare all relevant information before visits, make targeted suggestions, and continue to handle all documentation and billing tasks.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Aleksandr Gorbunov: I’m very glad that we started Muunai in Munich. From the beginning, you’ll find contact persons here who especially in the difficult first steps provide advice and experience.
I’m also convinced that personality is shaped strongly by the environment, and Munich offers an environment full of motivated, smart and helpful people. I find that extremely inspiring.
Munich Startup: Outsource or do it yourself?
Aleksandr Gorbunov: Of course there are things in a startup that you can outsource, especially in later stages. And of course you should also use the many tools that increase productivity. But you can’t have someone else build your startup.
The most important thing is the team – people who share the same vision and bring the right skills to make the vision a reality. And that’s precisely what nothing can replace.
