Nesta Impact Investments leads £1.5 million investment round in Q doctor
www.nesta.org.uk/press-release/nesta-impact-investments-leads-15-million-investment-round-in-q-doctor/
www.nesta.org.uk/press-release/nesta-impact-investments-leads-15-million-investment-round-in-q-doctor/
Social impact investor Nesta Impact Investments (NII), part of Nesta, has led a £1.5m growth funding round in Q doctor, a rapidly growing healthcare technology platform that is helping the NHS to deliver patient-centred care. Nesta’s investment was made alongside key angel investors and retail investors represented by Seedrs and comes at a critical time to enable Q doctor to support the NHS in responding to COVID-19.
Q doctor provides hundreds of NHS GP practices, urgent care providers and hospitals with the technology needed to have safe, secure, easy to use video consultations with patients. Having recently been approved by NHS Digital for video consultation in two different centrally funded fast tracks, in response to COVID-19, Q doctor is scaling at pace to meet the demand and is now available to 25 million patients. This fresh capital will be used to scale Q doctor’s reach and impact in the UK by strengthening its product development and business efforts. The investment is the latest addition to NII’s healthcare portfolio and forms part of the strategy to invest in products and services that use patient-centred solutions to help improve health outcomes in the UK.
Manish Miglani, Healthcare Lead at Nesta Impact Investments, and who will join the Q doctor Board, said,
“Nesta’s health investment activity focuses on innovative and scalable technologies that improve health outcomes, reduce health inequalities, and help patients get more tailored care. Q doctor already assists NHS clinicians and patients by integrating with existing NHS systems, rather than seeking to replace NHS GP services: this was key to our investment decision. We are excited to have led this very significant investment round, particularly at this pressing time, and look forward to supporting Q doctor’s scale-up plans.”
Chris Whittle, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Q doctor added,
“I am delighted to have completed our funding round led by Nesta Impact Investments and being able to bring in pro-NHS individuals at the same time via Seedrs. Q doctor has achieved national firsts in supporting 111, outpatient departments, hundreds of GP practices, and most recently London’s first COVID-19 Isolation Centre at Heathrow. Our solution, from a clinically led company, is tried and tested across the NHS; this funding is well timed to resource our rapid growth, as we support the NHS through the COVID-19 crisis at scale”.
ENDS
Original press release published by Q Doctor on 7th April 2020.
For more information from Nesta, please contact [email protected]
About Q doctor:
Dr Chris Whittle is an NHS doctor by background and training (anaesthetics) who joined an NHS England Clinical Entrepreneur Programme in 2016 and went on to found Q doctor, the most widely distributed video consultation service provider to the NHS. Q doctor have achieved a series of national firsts; the first video consultation platform approved by NHS Digital for use in 111, the first delivering specialist outpatient appointments over video (https://bit.ly/39vZkuP), and the first commissioned county-wide across all NHS services (hospitals, practices and community clinics across Lincolnshire: https://bit.ly/2T5IUU0).
About Nesta Impact Investments
Nesta Impact Investments is part of Nesta, a global innovation foundation. Nesta has used investment as a way of supporting innovation since it was founded over 20 years ago. Nesta Impact Investments backs mission-led technology businesses that seek both a social and financial return, at Seed stage to Series C. Nesta works in areas where there are big challenges facing society, and we align our investment work with those priorities in health, education and government innovation. More information is available at www.nestainvestments.org.uk.
