Elena Mustatea is the Co-founder and CEO of Bold Health, a digital health company helping individuals improve their digestive health with holistic gut care. Elena received the 21st Century Icon Technology Innovator award and was named in the Forbes’ Europe 30 Under 30 List, while her company Bold Health has been recognised for digital health innovation in numerous industry awards. Previously Elena worked in venture capital as investor with leading European VC fund Atomico, in investment banking at J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, in management consulting at Oliver Wyman, and ran a media business in university. She also started a political activism group to represent the tech industry voice during Brexit called TechTogether UK, and represented her birth country in Children’s Parliament of the World. Elena is a Romanian native and received her Bachelor of Arts from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA.

In an interview, she speaks on an array of topics. Excerpts:

Conception of Bold Health 

Elena explains that when she started Bold Health, she was coming out of her own health journey of healing her gut and her relationship with food. “After suffering an intestinal infection and as a result of poor lifestyle choices such as stressful job, poor sleep, drinking alcohol and eating too much raw food, I suffered long term digestive issues such as abdominal pain, food sensitivities, bloating and fatigue.” She added that she was quick enough to recognise the benefits and the need for holistic, root-cause medicine that brings together Western science with traditional approaches like food and plant medicine, nervous system regulation and human support in the form of specialist experts. “We brought all these together in an online platform, conveniently accessible and adapted to the needs of the modern individual who is empowered to have agency over their health. We wanted individuals to feel bold and empowered about their health, supported and hopeful!

With Bold, patients feel in expert hands, validated and understood in their health journey, supported with leading edge science-based solutions they can trust from a team of medical professionals, to solve not just their digestive health, but boost their mood and overall wellbeing.”

Healthcare industry- challenges galore 

Says this healthcare professional that in the post pandemic world, health workers face ever increasing patient demand, burdensome regulation and administrative tasks. “The opportunity is to deliver virtual-first, stepped care that triages patients into the right service (which is not always seeing a human, but could be going through a digital program), using data at every step of the care journey, automatising steps wherever possible, and making things easier for the provider by for example using AI to write the charts.” She noted that our providers have to freedom to work from where and when they want to, can spend sufficient time with the patient, and leverage content and tracking in between visits to maximize self-management and treatment impact outside the provider visit.

Key features of Bold Health’s comprehensive platform 

Bold Health’s comprehensive platform offers a set of self-help tools, patient education, psychobehavioral techniques, relaxation and lifestyle change, and where necessary medication and supplements, to support patients in healing their gut for good. “Depending on the symptoms and condition, we also offer the services of a team of clinicians specialized in treating gut health such as doctors or specialist nurses, registered dietitians, health coaches or therapists, who can support patients with the different aspects of holistic care. By bringing together different disciplines and types of therapies, the patient can get the combined benefit to transform their digestive health.”

Leadership traits 

Bold Health has become a global leader in digestive health in a few short years due to a unique combination of daring to think differently about the patient care experience, while staying loyal to medical evidence. “I am focused on service and solving human problems from a place of integrity and care. I also love technology’s ability to make healthcare data-informed, accessible, convenient, so I like to bring in the value of innovation and human-centered design.”

A word of advice for entrepreneurs 

Elena urges startups to not go into regulated spaces, unless you have very strong, unique, defendable IP and solid financial backing. Do a business where there is a clear existing business model and you know for sure someone will pay for your product or service. Develop health economics / ROI evidence early.

Bold Health- The way ahead

We will be expanding our multi-disciplinary, stepped care model across other chronic conditions outside GI, to be able to treat the whole person including when there are multiple co-occurring illnesses that will all benefit from lifestyle improvement, nervous system regulation, dietary improvements and expert medical advice.