The fund will invest in early-stage healthtech startups. It plans to bring scale through its partnerships with a variety of different health organisations around the world.
UK impact investor Spex Capital has secured €30m in commitments for its new Venture HealthTech Fund, which is targeting €100m.
The fund will invest in early-stage healthtech startups, with investments of up to €5m. It plans to scale breakthrough startups through its partnerships with health organisations including the National Health Service in the UK, Penn Medicine – a multi-hospital health system servicing seven million patients in the US – and EIT Digital, the European platform focused on digital innovation and entrepreneurship.
UK-based health care startups were valued at £32bn (€36.7bn) at the end of last year, employing almost 30,000 people, according to the HealthTech Index by the Startup Coalition. The global healthtech market is forecast to more than triple to $3.1trn (€2.7trn) between 2023 and 2033, driven by technological advances such as artificial intelligence, according to a report by Allied Market Research.
“Healthcare faces immense challenges worldwide with ageing populations creating growing patient demand and systemic cost pressures. Our true strength is not just the volume of companies we see, but the unparalleled power of our distribution network to provide them with essential commercial and clinical validation,” said Claudio D’Angelo, founder and CEO of Spex Capital.
New appointment
Spex further announced it had appointed Nick Markham, a former parliamentary under secretary of state at the Department of Health and Social Care as chairman of the board.
Markham, a member of the UK House of Lords, is also a co-founder of Cignpost Diagnostics, a private health screening service which provided Covid-19 tests to companies including Netflix and Apple during the pandemic.
”I’m delighted to join Spex Capital at such a pivotal moment for healthtech. This scale-up fund will unleash groundbreaking startups. I look forward to working with Claudio and the team as we accelerate the development and adoption of technologies that improve patient outcomes and reshape healthcare delivery globally,” Markham said.
