Estonia’s “Unicorn Land” reputation is usually pinned on fintech and e-residency, but Kerli Luks is working in a different corner of the ecosystem.
As CEO and co-founder of Muun Health, she is developing what the company hopes will become the first wearable for continuous hormone monitoring: a small skin patch designed to read reproductive hormone levels in real time and send the data straight to a smartphone, aiming to offer an alternative to urine strips and blood tests.
The technology is still early-stage, but it is targeting a market that has long been under-served: female reproductive health.
If you had one minute to convince an international health company to establish operations in Estonia, what would your pitch be?
Estonia offers a unique combination of speed, accessibility and innovation. It’s large enough to build meaningful partnerships, yet small enough to rapidly launch pilots and validate new technologies.
The startup ecosystem is highly collaborative, there is growing public support for health technology through grants and innovation programs and it’s easy to connect with key opinion leaders, researchers and healthcare stakeholders. If you want to move fast without compromising quality, Estonia is an excellent place to start.
What should European policymakers learn from Estonia when it comes to supporting health technology startups?
While Europe, and Estonia included still has room to improve access to growth-stage funding, Estonia demonstrates the value of fast decision-making and an innovation-friendly mindset.
Policymakers should create environments where startups can move quickly, collaborate easily with academia and healthcare providers, and test new technologies without unnecessary bureaucracy while maintaining high regulatory standards.
Winning HealthTech of the Year and securing public funding are major milestones. How do you balance the pressure to commercialise quickly with the scientific rigour required to build trust in a medical technology?
We always aim to move as fast as possible and actively look for ways to accelerate development. At the same time, we never compromise on scientific quality or patient safety.
Our priority is building a medical-grade device that delivers reliable clinical value. We’d rather take the time to get it right than launch a product that doesn’t perform as intended or fails to improve patient care.
Have there been any misconceptions about female hormones that your research has challenged?
We’re still in the development stage, so it’s too early to challenge existing assumptions with our own data. However, we expect our future clinical studies, including comparisons between blood and interstitial fluid measurements to generate new insights into hormone dynamics that could reshape how female hormones are monitored and understood.
Women’s health is finally receiving more investor and policy attention. What’s next for Muun and yourself?
Women’s health has been overlooked for far too long, so this momentum is incredibly encouraging. Right now, Muun is focused on building our technology and bringing our first MVP to life.
Personally, I’m focused on establishing Muun as a leader in continuous, medical-grade female hormone monitoring and helping shape the future of precision women’s health.
