Jón Ingi Bergsteinsson MedTech founder, former CTO of SMART-TRIAL and now a startup advisor and investor via LIFA Ventures. With 10+ years of hands-on experience scaling a SaaS company in regulated healthcare, Jón offers a rare blend of technical and commercial insight.

In this episode, we talk about why founders should stop treating regulatory and commercial teams like separate planets, how VCs really evaluate MedTech startups, and what SaaS-style thinking can teach traditional device companies. Jón also walks us through his “founder-to-fund” journey, shares common pitfalls in clinical trial design and gives a blunt take on why copying pharma’s playbook won’t work in MedTech.

Timestamps:

[00:00:35] Why MedTech Startups Still Struggle to Scale

[00:03:41] Building SMART-TRIAL Without Venture Capital

[00:06:25] Regulatory & Clinical Teams Need to Talk More

[00:09:50] LIFA Ventures: Investing Beyond the Spreadsheet

[00:12:12] The Hidden Cost of Ignoring Commercialization

[00:14:07] Copying Pharma? That’s a Mistake

[00:17:33] Europe vs U.S. Startup Culture: What Founders Get Wrong

[00:20:45] Advice for Early-Stage Founders in Regulated Health

[00:24:28] Jón’s Life Beyond MedTech: Coaching, Family & Hobbies

[00:26:12] One Thing He Wishes Founders Would Stop Doing

Get in touch with Jón - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joningib/

Get in touch with Karandeep Badwal - https://www.linkedin.com/in/karandeepbadwal/

Follow Karandeep on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@KarandeepBadwal

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