Vinehealth, a 2018-founded, London-based digital health startup that’s built an app offering personalized support for cancer patients while also making it easier to gather patient-reported outcome (PRO) data, including for drug development and clinical trials, has closed a $5.5 million seed round as it prepares to expand into the U.S.
The round, which co-founder and CTO Georgina Kirby describes as a “late seed” — ahead of a planned Series A “in the next 12-18 months” — is led by Talis Capital with participation from previous investors Playfair Capital and Ascension.
A number of angel investors have also joined the round, including Keith Gibbs, former CEO of AXA PPP Healthcare; Pam Garside, partner at Newhealth; Voyagers Health-Tech Fund, led by David Rowan, founding editor of Wired; David Giampaolo, healthcare entrepreneur and founder of PI Capital; Deepali Nangia, venture partner at Speedinvest and Atomico Angel; Faisal Mehmud, VP and former medical director of Bristol Myers Squibb; and KHP MedTech Innovations, a collaboration between King’s College London, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust.
The startup — which we billed as one “to watch” back in 2019 when we saw the founders pitching at Entrepreneur First’s demo day — combines behavioral science and AI to deliver timely patient support and nudges (for things like medication reminders) so they can more easily self-manage their treatment.
Vinehealth’s platform also acts as a channel through which patients can be remotely monitored by their clinicians as they provide feedback on symptoms and report any treatment side-effects.
So far its app has been downloaded around 15,000 times since being made available in January 2020 — which Kirby confirms covers all usage to date, so both for pure patient-support and for trials/research.
