The latest funding highlights, including predictive infection surveillance, a cardiovascular data platform, inorganic antimicrobial compounds, wellness ecosystem expansion, oncology, AI audiology and care home infrastructure development.
NEX Health Intelligence raises €1 million in pre-seed funding
London-based healthcare AI startup NEX Health Intelligence has closed a €1 million (£900,000) pre-seed funding round to develop its predictive infection surveillance and clinical decision support platform.
The round was led by Brighteye Ventures, with additional participation from Adeline Arts & Science, AFI Ventures, Momentous Ventures, the Conception X Angel Syndicate, and a cohort of industry angel investors.
The Imperial College London spin-out plans to use the funds to scale up across both UK and international hospital networks, complete critical UK regulatory and clinical safety work, and generate rigorous real-world clinical and economic evidence from its live sites.
Healthcare-associated infections represent a structural challenge for modern medicine. This leads to prolonged hospitalisations, avoidable patient deaths, severe operational bottlenecks, and billions in annual healthcare costs. NEX’s core technology directly addresses this issue by transitioning infection prevention and control (IPC) from a historically reactive process to an automated, predictive framework.
“While supporting the NHS COVID-19 response, I realised the real challenge wasn’t just the number of admissions – it was how quickly infections spread between vulnerable patients already inside hospitals,” said NEX Health Intelligence founder Ashleigh Myall.
Spun out of research in mathematics and graph-based machine learning, the software automatically builds dynamic contact networks from routinely collected hospital bed records. By analysing these datasets, the platform uncovers hidden links between patients and wards to identify precise mathematical variables that predict when and where transmissible, highly resistant superbugs are likely to spread days before transmission actually occurs.
The company is already executing pilot evaluations across two London NHS Trusts and an additional deployment in the north-west of England, while its international footprint includes operational rollouts at a major military hospital in Southeast Asia and one of Malaysia’s largest public hospitals.
NEX has now raised €1.4 million so far.
PlaqueTec secures $5 million to advance coronary disease data platform
Cambridge-based medtech company PlaqueTec has raised $5 million (£3.7 million) to accelerate the deployment of its cardiovascular data platform.
The oversubscribed funding round was backed entirely by the company’s existing shareholder network, with legal counsel provided by independent UK law firm Burges Salmon.
The fresh capital will fund the ongoing development and scaling of the BioCarta platform, which serves as a repository of unique intracoronary proteomic and clinical data. PlaqueTec plans to leverage this growing data asset to enable precise patient stratification and support global pharmaceutical partners in designing highly targeted therapeutic programs for coronary artery disease.
Cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of mortality worldwide, yet traditional diagnostic models are heavily limited by their reliance on conventional, systemic blood tests, which dilute and obscure the localised biological signals occurring directly within the heart’s arteries. PlaqueTec re-engineers this paradigm by pioneering localised intracoronary liquid biopsy technologies. The company’s approach allows clinicians to assess specific proteomic biomarkers directly at the site of coronary plaque formation, capturing real-time molecular data that has historically been impossible to isolate.
MetalloBio raises £400,000 in pre-Series A funding
Sheffield-based biotechnology spinout MetalloBio has raised over £400,000 in a pre-Series A financing round to advance its platform of inorganic antimicrobial compounds.
The funding round came from long-term institutional backer Oxford Technology Management (OTM) alongside OTM’s Wider Oxford Technology Angel Network (WOTAN), supplemented by a highly successful public equity crowdfunding campaign on the Republic Europe platform.
The fresh capital injection brings MetalloBio’s cumulative balance sheet to more than £1.3 million in non-dilutive research grants and over £705,000 in early-stage equity.
The University of Sheffield spinout plans to deploy the capital to achieve critical pre-clinical research and development milestones. Specifically, the team will focus on establishing safe in vivo dosing thresholds, completing essential toxicology testing, and formulating a definitive clinical trial blueprint alongside regulatory consultants. Additionally, the financing will fund an aggressive commercial licensing campaign targeting the company’s proprietary medical device coatings and functionalised materials.
“With these funds, we can accelerate our lead compounds through critical safety testing, moving us closer to delivering life-saving systemic treatments for patients who have exhausted all other options,” said MetalloBio chief executive Michael Murray.
Only two new distinct antibiotic families into clinical practice since 1962 and widespread exposure has allowed priority pathogens to develop severe genetic resistance to traditional historical drugs.
MetalloBio re-engineers this approach by using an inorganic, metal-based molecular chassis rather than relying on organic carbon-based chemical variations. This novel molecular structure attacks pathogens via a double-strike mechanism. In laboratory testing, MetalloBio’s broad-spectrum compounds have proven up to 80,000 times more effective at eradicating the World Health Organization’s high-priority ESKAPE superbugs than existing products.
Beyond systemic therapeutics, MetalloBio is heavily targeting catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs). By incorporating its thermal-stable additives directly into polymeric medical equipment, MetalloBio creates a defensive barrier capable of disrupting bacterial biofilms and preventing transmission entirely at the source before an infection can take hold.
Fresha reaches unicorn status with $80 million Series C funding
London-headquartered marketplace and business management platform Fresha has signed an $80 million primary growth investment from funds managed by global investment firm KKR.
The transaction values the platform at over $1 billion.
Already profitable, the company will deploy the new capital to accelerate its global footprint and fund next-generation product innovation, with a heavy emphasis on embedded artificial intelligence features designed to remove operational friction for merchants.
The transaction was executed via KKR’s Next Generation Technology Growth strategy.
Founded in 2015 by William Zeqiri and Nicholas Miller, Fresha provides an all-in-one software ecosystem tailored specifically for the beauty, wellness and self-care industries. While traditional horizontal booking tools often struggle to accommodate the complex inventory, dynamic staff scheduling, and complex payment structures inherent to salon operations, Fresha integrates software, financial services and consumer marketplace capabilities into a single vertical platform. The software automates appointment scheduling, processes localised financial transactions and manages client marketing for more than 130,000 businesses globally across core verticals, including aesthetics, spas, barbering and wellness clinics.
The platform currently facilitates over 35 million appointments per month, translating to an annual gross merchandise value (GMV) exceeding $15 billion.
The firm holds dominant market positions across the UK, Australasia, and the GCC region, and plans to use the capital to scale its emerging operations across North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. The incoming AI enhancements will focus on predicting client booking behaviours, optimising dynamic scheduling, and maximising secondary revenue streams for independent salon owners and wellness operators.
The primary injection brings Fresha’s total capital raised to date to $285 million.
CRISM Therapeutics raises £2.5 million equity funding
UK-based clinical-stage drug delivery company CRISM Therapeutics Corporation has successfully raised £2.5 million on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market.
Capitalised at an issue price of 10 pence per share, the placing will be supplemented by a separate retail offer of up to £100,000 via the BookBuild platform to accommodate the firm’s retail shareholder base.
Net proceeds will provide the funding required to progress CRISM’s clinical and preclinical oncology assets, deliver critical matching finance to secure additional pending non-dilutive grant funding, and bolster corporate working capital. Crucially, the cash injection will carry the company past a pivotal clinical milestone: dosing the first patient in its upcoming Phase 2 open-label trial for its lead candidate, irinotecan-ChemoSeed, which is scheduled to start in June.
Traditional systemic chemotherapy delivery frequently struggles to treat solid tumours effectively because systemic toxicity limits the maximum allowable dose, and the blood-brain barrier severely blocks therapeutics from reaching brain malignancies. CRISM bypasses these anatomical boundaries by pioneering localised, sustained-release drug delivery systems. Its technology consists of bioresorbable, drug-loaded matrices that are implanted directly into the tumour site or the surgical cavity following tumour resection. This allows for a continuous, high-concentration local delivery of the chemotherapeutic agent over several weeks while sparing the rest of the patient’s body from debilitating systemic side effects.
The company’s lead program, irinotecan-ChemoSeed, targets glioblastoma. The commercial appeal and regulatory trajectory of this asset were strengthened following an FDA Orphan Drug Designation award in March. Beyond its lead brain cancer study, CRISM will deploy a portion of proceeds to fund the continued preclinical development of docetaxel-ChemoSeed, a localised formulation targeting prostate cancers.
“This fundraise represents a pivotal moment for CRISM Therapeutics, providing the necessary capital to take us beyond the critical milestone of dosing our first patient in our Phase 2 open-label clinical trial of irinotecan-ChemoSeed for glioblastoma, a disease where patients need better options,” said CRISM Therapeutics chief executive Andrew Webb. “We are well-positioned to initiate Part 2 of the trial in newly diagnosed patients. In addition, our FDA Orphan Drug Designation award… will strengthen the commercial appeal and regulatory profile of our lead programme.”
TympaHealth land £2 million Innovate UK loan
London-based ear and hearing health technology provider TympaHealth has secured a £2 million loan from Innovate UK to accelerate the development and commercial deployment of its AI-powered guidance platform, Tympa Assist.
The government-backed capital injection follows an £18.4 million Series A round closed by the company in 2023.
The funding will be used to expand the platform’s core technical functionalities and develop advanced clinical diagnostic features designed for community health settings. By integrating cloud-based pathways and real-time guidance, the initiative directly aligns with the NHS’s broader strategic ambition to shift routine, non-complex care away from overburdened secondary hospitals and into localised environments through a neighbourhood health service model.
Primary care and audiology departments across the UK are facing unprecedented wait times, driven by a surge in routine ear care presentations that often do not require specialist intervention. TympaHealth resolves this bottleneck by equipping non-specialist frontline practitioners with a single, connected medical device. Unlike fragmented diagnostic tools on the market that focus solely on isolated image capture, TympaHealth’s unified system integrates high-definition digital otoscopy, hearing screening, microsuction earwax removal, and digital referral pathways into a streamlined clinical workflow.
The cornerstone of the newly funded upgrade is Otoscopy Assist, a module that applies real-time computer vision to assess physical image quality and accurately categorise earwax levels as minimal, moderate or substantial. The software is engineered to support practitioner confidence during examinations, automatically flagging abnormal structural findings to ensure timely, appropriate escalation to specialist ENT clinics while keeping final clinical judgment entirely in the hands of the trained operator.
The company was founded by ENT surgeon Krishan Ramdoo to address frontline clinical inefficiencies. “AI is often associated with diagnosis, but that’s not where the biggest challenge lies in everyday ear and hearing care,” said Ramdoo. “The real need at the frontline is consistency, confidence, and knowing when to escalate. Tympa Assist is the first feature to apply AI across the full ear and hearing health workflow… while keeping clinical judgement firmly in the hands of trained practitioners.”
Aspire LPP secures £15.1 million OakNorth loan for Surrey care facility
Surrey-headquartered specialist care home developer Aspire LPP has secured a five-year £15.1 million development loan from digital business bank OakNorth.
Terms of the loan have not been disclosed.
The capital will fund the land acquisition and construction of a new 74-bed, purpose-built care facility in Clandon, Surrey.
Aspire LPP operates a B2B business model, focusing entirely on the complex planning, architectural design, and site delivery of premium care assets before partnering with major care operators and institutional real estate investors for long-term management. The newly funded 1.64-acre Surrey site is engineered to alleviate regional bed shortages, offering comprehensive nursing, residential and dementia care services. The facility will feature 100% en-suite bedrooms alongside high-spec clinical amenities, dedicated therapy spaces, and specialised dementia-friendly layouts.
“This new site represents another important step in our strategy to deliver high-quality, purpose-built care homes in undersupplied markets,” said Aspire LPP managing director Michael Lucas. “The scheme has been carefully designed to meet the evolving needs of residents, while delivering best-in-class facilities and environments.”
