Accurx Secures £8.8M Series A Funding to Expand Its SMS-Based Communication Platform for GPs and Patients

VCBeat (WeChat Official Account: vcbeat) has learned that UK primary care provider Accurx recently announced the completion of an £8.8 million Series A financing round. The round was led by London-based venture capital firm Atomico, with participation from LocalGlobe and Entrepreneur First.

Accurx was co-founded by Jacob Haddad and Laurence Bargery. Initially, Accurx developed a dataset and tools to help patients address the issue of antibiotic misuse. Rooted in the founders’ research backgrounds, leveraging data and machine learning to improve healthcare services remains the company’s top priority. The startup later shifted its focus to building a broader communication platform that brings general practitioners and patients closer together.

Accurx’s flagship product is Chain SMS, a text messaging application designed to facilitate communication between general practitioners (GPs) and patients, enabling GPs to send text messages directly to patients. Typical use cases for Chain SMS include GPs sending treatment advice, notifying patients of test results, and reminding them of upcoming appointments. All content sent by Chain SMS users is archived in the patients’ medical records.

Chain SMS has been adopted by 20% of primary care clinics in the UK, a figure that was close to zero at its launch in February 2018. Conventional wisdom holds that startups struggle to penetrate the NHS (National Health Service); however, this landscape is shifting in practice. Although primary care clinics are funded by the NHS, they operate as independent businesses, making it easier for Chain SMS to sell its solutions to these providers.

Furthermore, documents from the UK Companies House reveal that Tom Tugendhat, a prominent Conservative politician, former army officer, and current Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, is an early investor in Accurx.

In addition, Wendy Tan White, former General Partner at EF and recently appointed Vice President at Alphabet’s X (Google X), also participated in Accurx’s latest funding round. Meanwhile, VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that Irina Haivas, a partner recently hired by lead investor Atomico, led this round of investment. Haivas is a former surgeon and surgical fellow at Harvard Medical School.

Atomico, founded by Mattias Ljungman and Niklas Zennstrom on June 1, 2006, is a venture capital firm headquartered in London, UK. It focuses on investments across seed, Series A, early-stage, mid-stage, late-stage, emerging growth, and growth equity rounds, with offices in South America, Asia, and Europe. Atomico prefers to invest in the internet, telecommunications, and technology sectors, with a particular emphasis on innovative and disruptive technologies, fintech, and media companies.

LocalGlobe is a UK-based venture capital firm specializing in seed-stage investments. Since its founding in 1999, LocalGlobe has invested in companies including Citymapper, Impossible Foods, Lovefilm, Moo, TweetDeck, TransferWise, and Zoopla.

Entrepreneur First was founded on September 1, 2009, and is headquartered in London, UK. It invests in technical experts, dedicating itself to helping them create new tech startups. Entrepreneur First has created more than 100 startups, which are currently valued at over $1 billion. These startups are funded by some of the most prestigious investors, including Y Combinator, Index Ventures, and Octopus Ventures.

(Compiled by Tan Xin)