Gresham House Ventures invests £5m in eConsult Health

Gresham House Ventures – a growth equity investor specialised in scaling businesses driven by technology, customer insight or service excellence – has invested £5m into eConsult Health, the leading online consultation provider to the NHS for primary care.

The £5m investment, made on behalf of the Baronsmead VCTs, is in addition to further investment from existing shareholders and will support the expansion of eConsult Health into the secondary care market. Beyond maintaining its position as the leading digital triage service in GP surgeries, eConsult Health will continue the rollout of its Urgent and Emergency Care triage solution, eTriage, and outpatient referral software, eSpecialist.

Digital triage allows patients to be dealt with more effectively and efficiently, moving from a world where 90% of patients have no option other than a face to face appointment to one where the majority of cases are appropriate for remote closing, allowing healthcare practitioners to prioritise face to face consultations with those patients in greatest and most urgent need. This has become particularly urgent in light of the additional pressures put on the NHS by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gresham House Ventures’ investment was led by investment director Henry Alty, who focuses on process automation technology, alongside Maya Ward and James Hendry.

Henry Alty, Investment Director at Gresham House Ventures said:

“At such a crucial moment for healthcare provision, funding the right businesses in this space is more important than ever. Founded by four innovative GP partners in South London, the eConsult platform has already proven the power of its clinically led technology, as the most widely used digital consultation solution and the first choice for NHS GP surgeries,”

“By expanding its services to cover secondary as well as primary care, eConsult Health has the potential to go even further and completely revolutionise healthcare provision in the UK, improving outcomes while at the same time driving effectiveness. We are very excited to work alongside an extremely knowledgeable management team and further improve their current platform.”

Dr Murray Ellender, CEO of eConsult Health, commented:

“We are extremely pleased to be working with Gresham House Ventures as an investor. This funding will help us keep pace with the product development we need to support cutting edge health technology across both primary and secondary care. NHS patients deserve an excellent digital experience when interacting with the health service and we now look forward to delivering the transformation needed at pace.”

Diligence providers were Candesic (Commercial DD), Azets (Financial DD), Rich Kershaw (Tech DD), Sales Forensics (Sales DD), DSG-B2B (Marketing DD) and Confidas People (Management and organisational referencing). Investor legal advice was provided by Shoosmiths.

eConsult Health was advised by Anthem Corporate Finance and Ashfords.

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