Tokura raises seed round to scale outpatient surgery
The Tokura founders, Dr. Daniel Kreter und David Rizor - © Tokura
Germany performs around 8 million inpatient surgical procedures a year that could, in principle, be done on an outpatient basis. The country has just 227 dedicated ambulatory surgery centres for a population of 84 million. That gap is exactly what Berlin-based startup Tokura is betting on.
The company has closed a seed financing round co-led by Berlin health tech investor Heal Capital and Zurich-based VC redalpine, with a group of angels around better ventures also participating. The funding will go towards building and operating tech-enabled outpatient surgery centres, with an ambitious target of one million procedures per year. According to a blog post by Dr. Lucas Mittelmeier of Heal Capital Tokura is coming out of stealth with this announcement.
The timing is no coincidence. Germany's new "Hybrid-DRG" reimbursement model pays the same flat fee for a procedure whether it is carried out in a hospital or an outpatient setting. The catalogue of covered procedures has already grown from 583 codes in 2025 to 904 in 2026, and Health Minister Nina Warken has set a target of 2 million previously inpatient cases rerouted through the model by 2030. Hospitals, with their high fixed costs, are unlikely to lead that transition.
Tokura's founders bring an unusual background for healthcare: Daniel Kreter spent 15 years at startups and scale-ups including Zalando and Taxfix, where he was long-term COO, and David Rizor led corporate strategy at Taxfix, overseeing financing rounds totalling more than €300 million. The team is rounded out by physicians and experienced health operators, including a leading surgeon at Charité Berlin.
The plan is to build new facilities from the ground up rather than acquire existing sites, using AI and software to streamline everything from patient preparation to post-surgery aftercare. A first centre is currently in development, with additional locations already being scouted.
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