AI health platform raises seven-figure funding

Syndi Health, a startup providing a digital infrastructure to offer personalised and effective digital health support within organisations, has raised £1.65m, in equity and grant funding. The investment comes from some of the most influential names in the UK’s health, technology and insurance sectors and Innovate UK, the national innovation agency.

Syndi Health’s mission is to make digital healthcare affordable, accessible and smarter through the use of artificial intelligence. The company has built an AI platform that enables healthcare and insurance organisations to drive adoption and engagement of third-party wellbeing apps and telemedicine services, which can be personalised to individual users.

The digital healthcare market is flooded. There are over 350,000 wellbeing apps, telemedicine and digital therapeutics available direct to consumers and $145bn is spent annually on point-of-care digital health services. With such a large pool of online options to choose from, it’s no wonder consumers and their employers are overwhelmed with the ecosystem.

For the growing numbers of people seeking mental and physical health support, even with direction from a clinician, the chances of them finding the solution that best fits their particular needs, without the stress of a trial and error process, are slim. Syndi Health founders, Ben Lakey and Jorge Alexander, built the platform after finding themselves waiting over 10 months to access mental health support.

Ben Lakey, the co-founder of Syndi Health, said, “We began Syndi Health knowing that we didn’t want to add more noise in the digital health market. Instead, we wanted to help healthcare organisations and insurers offer people a way to forge their own clear and safe path to digital care.”

Syndi Health first launched their solution with student platforms in November 2020, and successfully onboarded more than 20,000 users from over 1,300 different schools, universities and colleges in the UK and the US. The business is now targeting employers, healthcare providers and insurers and has just signed a pilot contract with one of the largest healthcare charities in the UK.

The pre-seed funds will be used to continue building the platform, grow the Syndi Health team and accelerate its B2B customer growth. Syndi Health will execute its pilots with both public and private healthcare providers and employee benefit programmes to grow its user base and capture additional clinical evidence.

Professor Rohit Shankar MBE FRCPsych, clinical director at Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust said, “We are very excited by the research and commercial potential of the Syndi Health platform. It will help us understand how better to support the mental health needs of our people and offer them the personalised digital support they need at the earliest opportunity, which is invaluable.”

In addition to the investment, Syndi Health have won a £400,000 ($500,000 USD) grant from Innovate UK as part of their Biomedical Catalyst programme, in collaboration with the University of Plymouth and Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. The funding from the grant will be used to validate the Syndi Health platform within the NHS over the next 18 months.

Damien Marmion, former CEO of AXA Global Health, said, “Ben, Jorge and the rest of the Syndi Health team have found a way to develop an impactful product that offers remote, immediate and effective digital care.

“The platform is one that employers, individuals and insurers have long looked for - a smart one-stop-shop for digital health services, that monitors real-world impact and facilitates point-of-care solutions. It is a refreshing and much-needed approach to healthcare and I am excited by the impact on populations and customers that I have spent my career serving.”

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily