From intensive care to startup

Chrisje Haenen
Aug 14
4 min read

David Van Laere never set out to become a tech entrepreneur. He trained as a neonatologist and spent years caring for premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). But when he saw how much valuable data was being left unused, something clicked.

At the University Hospital of Antwerp, where patient monitoring was fully digitised, data from newborns was collected minute by minute. Yet in practice, the current tools just visualize patient data and do not use the data to support clinicians in detecting early signs of illness. Not even in cases of life-threatening conditions like sepsis.

“It frustrated me enormously” David recalls. “There was so much data but there was no technology available that warned us in real-time when early patterns of complications were presented.” That problem became his mission. And from that mission, Innocens was born.

A radical step: two years to innovate

In 2017, David made a bold proposal to his hospital’s CEO: let him step away from most of his clinical duties for two years to focus fully on building a predictive model for neonatal sepsis – and the real-time tech to support it.

Support came from an unexpected place. A local industrialist, whose own children had been treated in NICU and survived sepsis, believed in the mission and offered to fund the initial research and development. With that, David brought together a team from the University of Antwerp, IBM and AI scale-up ML6. Their goal: build an algorithm that could analyse live patient data and alert doctors hours before sepsis became visible at the bedside.

From research to reality

Years of development followed. The team trained a model on a decade of patient data and built the technology to run it in real-time on the ward. Finally, the moment came to deploy it at the bedside. “We switched it on... and for several days, no warnings were generated by the technology nothing happened. We thought something was wrong” says David.

But then the system raised its first alert. It turned out to be a real case of sepsis, one that was diagnosed by the medical team but the algorithm (still blinded for clinicians) had spotted it hours earlier than anyone else. “That moment was unforgettable. After all the work, it finally proved it could have great value in a real-world setting.”

Anothter tough hurdle: tech transfer

With a working prototype in hand, David wanted to spin the technology out into a startup venture. That required a tech transfer agreement with the hospital and university. What followed, he says, was a very challenging experiences. The negotiations were long, and at times frustrating and misaligned.

“I felt like I had to fight for my own idea” David says. “And I was completely new to the business side of things.” That’s when he found support from SO Kwadraat. With their guidance, David managed to push through and structure a deal that was favourable to all parties and didn’t block the company’s future growth. “Every tech startup that spins out of research faces this. If you don’t set up your IP and equity structure properly from the start, everything else could get compromised.”

Not an engineer, and that’s a strength

Unlike most tech founders, David doesn’t have a background in engineering or business. But that, he argues, is his biggest strength. “AI is not the hard part. The real challenge is understanding how care works and how to build something that doctors and nurses will actually use.”

David knows the clinical environment inside out. He understands what healthcare professionals need, what they fear, and what makes them trust or reject a new tool. That insight shaped every step of the product development – from design to deployment. He challenges the notion that only engineers can lead tech innovation: Understanding the problem is usually harder than building the technology.”

Innocens today

Innocens is now a team of five: engineers, regulatory experts, a business developer and David as CEO. The system is running in several hospitals across Belgium and Germany, and is currently being installed in one of the largest children’s hospitals in the US.

The startup has raised €1.1 million to date and is preparing for its next growth phase. Along the way, David has made his share of mistakes: initial founder misalignment, hiring challenges, etc – but the team learns quickly. “You don’t need to be perfect. You need to be aware, stay coachable and correct fast.”

Above all, his motivation remains unchanged. “This isn’t about money” David says. “If I wanted to make more money, I’d still be a specialist. But with this, I can potentially help millions of patients. That’s our mission and the motivation the teams needs.”

Final lessons

For other tech founders, especially those spinning out from academia or hospitals, David shares a few hard-earned insights:

Start with the problem, not the technology. “Your tech is just a tool. If you don’t deeply understand the problem, it won’t matter.”
Fix your tech transfer before raising money. “Don’t pitch to investors before your house is in order.”
Surround yourself with people who challenge you. “Find mentors who’ve done it before. You don’t know what you don’t know.”
Keep your mission at the centre. “If you’re in this just for the money, healthcare is the wrong sector.”
Embrace the rollercoaster of entrepreneurship. “Some days you feel like Lionel Messi scoring a goal in the World Cup final. The next day, you’re curled up in bed wondering if you’ll make it through. That emotional rollercoaster is the reality of building a startup. It’s challenging at times but it also very addictive”