Yahoo Finance GP-on-demand service Push Doctor to announce £13.7m fundraise
GP-on-demand service Push Doctor has raised £13.7m after customer numbers more than doubled to 5.4m after coronavirus struck.
The company secured the cash from existing backers including London-listed venture capital firm Draper Esprit and Accelerated Digital Ventures. Part of the money also came from the Government’s Future Fund scheme, which was launched to help start-ups hammered by Covid.
The round is understood to value the Manchester-based company at about £60m. It was last valued at around $63m (£48m) at the end of 2019.
Push Doctor is planning to spend the latest funds on expanding its services following a boom in demand as customers embraced new technology to get medical help without going outside.
The seven-year-old start-up lets users book GP appointments through their phones, see a doctor through a video chat service and gain access to prescriptions.
The company has agreed a string of partnerships with NHS bodies this year so more patients can access to online GP consultations at a time when many surgeries have remained closed.
Under the NHS Long Term Plan, the health service has laid out ambitions to allow every patient in the UK access to online digital GP consultations. Estimates suggest around half of the 102m GP appointments which took place between March and July this year we conducted by either phone or video link.
Wais Shaifta, chief executive of Push Doctor, said: “We are proud to be playing our part in helping our National Health Service through this challenging period and these funds will be put to work in scaling-up the NHS’s digital offering at a critical time in its existence.”
He said there had been an “aggressive spike” in demand during the first lockdown, and a second spike more recently.
Mr Shaifta said: “For me, this is the period where we can show the benefits of digital healthcare in the right way.
“Some people will come in and take advantage of the situation but we need to make sure everybody’s comfortable. This is healthcare where it’s a bit more delicate and you’re dealing with patient info and sensitive data.”
