January at Lemons
A quick note before you start: this update will take about 6 minutes to read. It’s longer than usual, by design. January marks a turning point for Lemons: new structure, real traction, and a clear.
Hi Everyone,
Welcome back to Lemons in the Room, the XR digital-therapy startup reshaping the quality of care in hospitals.
We want to share what’s happening in immersive health and inside our lab of Lemons 🍋
Lemons Journal is where we explore how virtual reality, product design, and neuroscience are redefining healthcare.
In this edition:
0. January Opening Snapshot
1. Team Updates
2. Business Momentum
3. Strategic Reset & Roadmap
January started with a totally new energy. We came back from the Christmas break with a new office.
A private one. Back in the OGR Techstars mood.
Not a coworking anymore, where every day at the end of the day you pack your laptop and your ideas into a backpack, but a space where Lemons’ ideas and strategy can stay, grow, and take over desks and walls.
We’re also sharing the space with another startup that just raised and is now scaling fast. The energy is contagious.
And there’s one more reason this month feels special. As I write this update, Lemons turns two.
We’re starting with a clear objective: €750k in revenue, and the structure in place to make it real.
So happy birthday to Lemons, and to everyone who has been part of the journey so far🍋
1. Team & Organization
Over the years, many of you, mentors and investors, told us the same thing: you don’t invest in ideas, you invest in people. We are applying the same principle internally.
That’s why we are intentionally focusing on building a team of individuals with ownership, energy, and the willingness to grow with the company and take responsibility as Lemons scales.
This is also our largest investment today: strengthening the team where execution matters most, and adding the right capabilities as the company enters a more structured phase.
January also marks an important step in how Lemons is organized and operates.
We welcomed Ricca to the team, joining full-time with a focus on business growth. His role is to work closely with sales and founders on pipeline execution, deal conversion, and commercial structure, helping us shift from founder heavy execution to a more scalable setup.
This hire allows the founders to rebalance their time, moving from constant operational firefighting to clearer strategic ownership.
At the same time, the team is physically coming back together in Florence. After a month of fragmentation due to visa related issues, the full team can now work from the same space again. This might sound simple, but the impact on speed, alignment, and execution is very real.
We also selected three new interns who will gradually join the team over the coming months: two management engineers and one developer.
One will focus on structuring outreach and commercial diffusion in Italy in a more systematic and repeatable way.
The other will work on market analysis, competitive landscape, and the definition of actionable expansion paths in selected European countries.
On the technical side, the team is also picking up pace.
Product development at Lemons is no longer just about code. It now brings together software development, 3D art, animation, sound design, and concept art, all working as coordinated parts of the same system.
This multidisciplinary setup allows us to move faster without sacrificing quality, translating clinical needs into experiences that are coherent, reliable, and usable in real hospital environments.
This includes the evolution of our pediatric offering, built on more than a year of real world experience in pediatric hospitals, with active clinical champions, multi department usage, and structured feedback loops. These learnings are now converging into a more mature, clearer, and stronger product direction.
As the team grows, so does the pace at which Lemons can think, test, and execute.
This is a necessary step as we move from an early, founder driven phase into a company designed to scale.
2. Business Momentum
January didn’t just feel different. It showed it in numbers.
In the first weeks of the year, we closed three commercial deals that alone generate the same revenue as the entire 2025. This is not a spike driven by chance, but the result of a more structured sales process, clearer positioning, and better execution across the funnel.
New hospitals have been signed and onboarded, with smoother activation processes and clearer ownership on both sides. This is allowing Lemons to expand its presence across Italy, department by department, with increasing consistency.
At the same time, we are seeing stronger signals of product-market fit.
Usage data, qualitative feedback from clinicians, and clinical outcomes are starting to align. Hospitals that adopt Lemons are not just testing it: they are integrating it, expanding usage, and asking for more.
This momentum is reflected not only in revenue, but also in:
• higher usage per center
• growing upsell opportunities
• 0 churn and stronger renewal signals
Most importantly, commercial traction is no longer detached from the product.
What hospitals are buying is increasingly aligned with how the product is actually used, measured, and perceived on the field.
This is the kind of momentum we want to scale: grounded in real usage, real outcomes, and repeatable processes.
3. Strategic Reset & Roadmap 2026–2028
Growth and progress are not accidental.
They are the result of a meticulous, methodical, and increasingly scientific approach we are adopting to move Lemons forward.
Improvisation is over.
Thanks to the method we learned at Techstars, combined with deep market analysis and industry best practices, Lemons is now operating on much more solid ground.
Over the past weeks, the founders, together with advisors, went through a deep strategic reset.
We aligned on expectations, roles, priorities, and decision-making frameworks.
We translated vision into execution through a clear system of OKRs, KPIs, and project management.
Lemons is no longer run by instinct alone.
From now on, growth is driven by structure, data, and long-term intent.
These pillars guide every major decision we make over the next three years.
1. Zero-Touch Strategy
Transform a hands-on service into a remote, scalable, and repeatable model.
2. Deep Science
Build a strong scientific moat through clinical validation, publications, and measurable outcomes.
3. Breakthrough Product
Continuously evolve the product to stay ahead of the market and remain a clinical reference point.
4. Grown-Up Company Strategy
Scale the organization with clear processes, delegation, project management, and a high-performance culture.
5. Strategic Alliance
Create partnerships that accelerate credibility, distribution, and international growth.
6. European Expansion
Structured territorial expansion with the objective of European leadership in clinical XR.
Q1 2026
For Q1 first sprints, we are tightening execution around one core priority: data driven adoption.
In the last year we learned a simple lesson: without a structured data collection system, every product decision becomes guesswork. Before pushing harder on clinical validation or accelerating international expansion, we need to understand current hospitals deeply and turn usage into actionable insight.
This is how we move from a promising tool to a scalable clinical system: measure, learn, iterate, and only then scale.
Asks
Lemons enters 2026 with clearer structure, stronger traction, and a defined long-term direction.
We’re looking for introductions to strategic partners and hospitals, and we’re happy to discuss the roadmap, assumptions, and execution plan with those who want to brainstorm with us.
At the same time, we’re starting to explore the next fundraising step, and we’re open to conversations with investors aligned with where we’re heading.
If you’d like to be part of this next chapter, now is a great moment to talk.
Team Lemons 🍋