HealthTech
From Tehran to London: How Arman built a health-tech startup to improve patient care
Arman shares his journey from studying in the UK to building a scalable digital health platform, the challenges of early-stage fundraising and what keeps him motivated.
Arman Farhadi
Founder & CEO, MedoraLondon, UK
“I didn’t start with a perfect plan. I just knew the problem needed solving.”
The Beginning
Arman moved to the UK to study biomedical engineering, expecting to end up in research. A hospital placement in his second year changed that: he watched clinicians lose whole afternoons to paperwork that nobody had designed.
The Idea
Medora started as a scheduling tool built for one department. Within a term it was being used by three, and the requests coming back were all variations of the same thing — give us back the time.
First Steps
There was no funding and no team. There was a laptop, a rented desk and a standing invitation to sit in on ward rounds, which turned out to be worth more than either.
The Biggest Challenge
Selling into healthcare is slow by design. Arman spent eighteen months learning that a pilot is not a customer and that procurement is its own discipline.
The Turning Point
A trust-wide rollout, won on the strength of the pilot data rather than a pitch deck, took Medora from a project to a company with payroll.
Building in the UK
London gave him clinicians, engineers and investors within the same postcode — and a community of Iranian founders who had already made the mistakes he was about to.
Where They Are Now
Medora runs in eleven hospitals and the team is nineteen people. The roadmap is still written from the ward, not the boardroom.
Advice to Other Founders
“Talk to the people living with the problem until you are bored of hearing it. Then build.”