Radii Devices began with a vision to improve prosthetic fitting, and grew into a global business providing software to clinicians providing a wide variety of assistive technology. As we grew quickly from PhD research at the University of Southampton into a fast-scaling startup, our partnerships and breakthroughs have been as exciting to us as some of the less celebrated milestones, like quality certifications and regulatory approvals. All the while, we stayed committed to using data-driven fitting to improve clinical outcomes – and learned a great deal along the way about growing a global business in the complex world of healthcare technology.

Operating in an environment with little room for error

In the early stages of a startup, it’s tempting to adopt the "move fast and break things" mentality, especially when you’re concerned about competitors beating you to the big reveal. However, in the healthcare space – where patient safety and comfort are at stake – quality isn’t just a competitive edge; it’s a requirement. First impressions in the clinical setting are crucial to achieve long-term buy-in for your project from a highly specialized customer base with little time and immense performance pressure.

On that journey, some of the less glamorous milestones, like achieving ISO 13485:2016 certification, the international standard for medical device quality management, were the most crucial. This wasn’t simply a regulatory box to check; it represented a commitment to rigorous standards that guide all aspects of product development and clinical deployment.

Any startup in healthcare or a similarly high-stakes industry should recognize that success is built on a foundation of trust, reliability, and consistency. It might not get as much LinkedIn love as announcing a huge funding round, or getting endorsement from an entrepreneurial influencer, but the sooner you can validate your product’s quality, the stronger your positioning in the market will be.

Building meaningful partnerships

As a startup, you cannot succeed in isolation. This is especially true in healthcare, where the ecosystem is complex and interconnected. Partnerships are intensely valuable, for validating your direction, for direct feedback from your intended user, and for reaching clinical goals as well as business ones.

For Radii, these collaborations have been critical since day one. Working with Opcare, who are the largest provider of NHS prosthetic services, enabled us to collect the data required to inform our computational models and ensure our technology could fit seamlessly into clinical practice.

Scaling globally, our collaboration with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was not only a validation of our technology but also a reminder of how crucial it is to find partners who align with your vision.

Whichever sector you operate in, building strong partnerships is key to scaling sustainably. These relationships allow you to gain insight and integrate your technology more deeply into existing workflows and systems, making adoption easier and faster. Rather than trying to impose a system that, from an external perspective might seem sleeker and more efficient, you learn about the day-to-day experience of your end user, the small details that might seem inefficient but are critical  to their work, and the more pressing issues you’d ignore if you didn’t have a guide on the inside to point them out.

In that way, partnerships provide invaluable feedback loops, helping startups improve product by understanding the real-world challenges faced by clinicians and patients. It’s not just about finding new customers and increasing revenue, but about advancing your mission and help you better serve your end users to develop long-lasting relationships.

The value of clinical feedback and real-world testing

For any startup developing technology that will be used by professionals, continuous user feedback is critical. From the earliest days of Radii Devices, we worked closely with clinicians, patients, and healthcare providers to ensure that our software solved real problems in the prosthetics field. This process allowed us to refine our product, ensuring it wasn’t just innovative but genuinely useful in clinical settings.

This kind of feedback loop is essential for any startup, especially in industries where user experience directly affects outcomes. Rather than assuming you know what the market needs, focus on listening to your users. The sooner you can get your product into the hands of people who will actually use it, the sooner you’ll be able to adapt, improve, and solidify your market fit.

Focusing on a clear, evidence-based value proposition

Startups, especially in tech, often fall into the trap of trying to solve too many problems at once. Whilst it can be tempting to try and capture the entire end-to-end value chain, this often requires trying to build multiple companies at the same time, which requires substantially more resources. From our experience, the key to success has been maintaining a clear, evidence-based value proposition. Our goal at Radii Devices has always been to improve the prosthetic fitting process, and every decision we’ve made – from product development to market expansion – has been in service of that mission.

For startups, defining and sticking to a specific value proposition is crucial. If you can clearly articulate the problem you’re solving and demonstrate why your solution is effective, you’ll be able to build trust with customers, partners, and stakeholders. In healthcare, where outcomes are everything, backing up your claims with solid evidence is essential. The same principle applies across industries: focus on creating measurable, real-world impact.

Growing Up without Growing Away from your foundation

For Radii, as we continue to grow, we are excited about the opportunities ahead. We’re preparing for the next stage of clinical trials in multiple NHS centres in the UK, where we aim to further validate the clinical benefits of our technology. Beyond prosthetics, we’re exploring new applications of our software, including ankle foot orthoses  and non-invasive ventilation masks. We’re also optimistically excited for opportunities to find funding partners who believe in our mission, vision and values.

Every startup faces challenges. Scaling a product, securing partnerships, and navigating regulatory landscapes are tricky, and it is important to acknowledge that. But with a focus on quality, meaningful collaboration, and a clear value proposition, it’s possible to turn those challenges into milestones of success.

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