Uber invests in Birmingham healthcare app

Birmingham-based Memrica have recently raised an undisclosed amount from American car-sharing giant Uber in their second round of fundraising. We take a look at this and other UK startups developing innovative healthcare apps.

This high-growth company has developed a healthcare app, Prompt, that helps people with dementia or memory problems. The app creates a visual diary, links information about people or objects to photographs, then retrieves that information when the object or person is viewed through a smartphone camera.

Founded by Mary Matthews, the company initially won the UK arm of the UberPITCH competition earlier this year, with Uber making a direct investment after the four finalist founders met Uber founder Travis Kalanick earlier this summer. The young company is also one of the startups on the Innovation Birmingham Entrepreneurs for the Future (e4f) programme.

As well as equity investment, the business has also received a variety of grants – four in the last three years, from both the Nominet Trust and Innovate UK.

So which are the other players in this space? Healthcare is a common avenue for app development, and using an advanced search on our platform (which incidentally, you really should try), we can get a better idea of UK trends within the sub-sector.

We’ve seen a steady increase in investment into healthcare app developers, with £62m invested in the last four years. The first quarter of this year saw a record number of transactions – and indeed, amount invested – into these young health app developers.

Speaking of young, it’s interesting to note that 75% of all companies in this space are still at an early or seed stage. Looking more closely there are several businesses that stand out as ones to watch – even at such a young age.

Babylon have developed a mobile healthcare app that can enable video consultantions with GPs, collect clinical records and monitor an individual’s health. Based in London, they raised $25m in January 2016 with the Swedish investment company Kinnevik AB.

Like Memrica, Braci is also a young startup based in Birmingham. Established in 2014, they have created sound recognition software that converts sounds into visual and sensory alerts for the hard of hearing. A participator in the acclaimed Oxygen Accelerator programme, Braci raised £490k in May from a variety of investors.