From Heartbreak to Healthcare Revolution: An AI-Powered Solution
For many entrepreneurs, the spark of innovation ignites from personal passion or professional ambition. However, for Dubai-based founder Avinav Nigam, a devastating personal tragedy became the catalyst for transforming global healthcare systems through artificial intelligence.
A Personal Loss That Changed Everything
In 2022, Nigam witnessed firsthand the fragility of modern healthcare when his colleague and friend battled leukemia in a London hospital. The 32-year-old Oxford-educated lawyer had successfully fought cancer through five months of chemotherapy at one of London's premier medical facilities. Just as she prepared to return to work at IMMO Capital, the real estate platform she co-founded with Nigam, the National Health Service requested she vacate her bed due to critical staffing shortages.
Tragically, two days before her scheduled return, she succumbed to a lung infection. Her death highlighted a sobering reality: it wasn't the cancer that proved fatal, but rather a healthcare system unable to provide adequate post-treatment care due to workforce limitations.
Building TERN Group: A Response to Global Crisis
This personal loss propelled Nigam to establish his third entrepreneurial venture, TERN Group, which secured $24 million in Series A funding in September 2025. His research revealed the problem extended far beyond the United Kingdom, with global healthcare worker shortages projected to reach 85 million by 2030, including 20 million specifically in healthcare and social care roles.
In 2023, TERN Group launched what Nigam describes as an "AI-Native" global talent mobility platform designed specifically for healthcare recruitment. The platform achieved remarkable early success, generating $30 million in annualized revenue within its first 24 months while onboarding more than 650,000 healthcare professionals.
How the AI Platform Transforms Healthcare Hiring
TERN's sophisticated artificial intelligence system represents a quantum leap in healthcare recruitment technology:
- The AI interviewing platform assesses 28 distinct attributes across 80 specialized nursing roles
- It achieves exceptional 96%+ retention rates for placed healthcare workers
- The system delivers an 88% conversion rate from resume submission to job offer
- Most significantly, it reduces international healthcare hiring timelines from the traditional 6-12 months to under 10 weeks
Revolutionizing Healthcare in the UAE and Beyond
TERN has gained national prominence in the United Arab Emirates, where it now competes with industry giants like Palantir for government-level workforce assessment contracts. The platform's timing couldn't be more critical, with the UAE healthcare sector projected to spend over $50 billion by 2029 and Germany requiring 40,000-50,000 nurses annually.
The platform operates with strict ethical recruitment standards while providing zero-cost training and placement for healthcare professionals. In the UAE specifically, TERN's system assists Emirates Health Services in hiring nurses for their network of 134 hospitals and health centers.
The AI platform conducts comprehensive remote interviews that evaluate clinical reasoning and identify top candidates efficiently. Beyond initial placement, the system tracks professional development over time, helping nurses plan career advancement and develop leadership skills.
The Entrepreneur Behind the Innovation
TERN represents Nigam's third major entrepreneurial success. An IIT Bombay alumnus, he previously co-founded Cars24 in India, a digital marketplace that allows vehicle sellers to receive instant bids from dealers, now valued at $3.2 billion. He later relocated to the United Kingdom to launch IMMO Capital, Europe's first technology-driven single-family residential investment platform.
Now, with TERN Group, Nigam focuses his energies on what he identifies as one of the world's most pressing challenges: ensuring healthcare systems worldwide are staffed not just quickly, but sustainably and effectively. His journey from personal tragedy to technological innovation demonstrates how profound loss can sometimes birth the most meaningful solutions to global problems.
