Virtual ward start-up secures £2.4m to further develop technology

Doccla, a healthtech start-up behind virtual ward technology to ease pressure on hospitals, has secured £2.4 million in an oversubscribed seed round, led by Giant Ventures and early-stage technology VC, Speedinvest. 

Doccla uses remote medical monitoring to care from home and this investment will supercharge the start-up’s ambition to make virtual hospitals a core part of modern healthcare.

Founded by health entrepreneur, Martin Ratz, and tech entrepreneur, Dag Larsson, Doccla harnesses ‘Internet of Things’ technology to monitor patient vitals and deliver insights to clinicians. This helps hospitals alleviate the pressure on resources, enabling the early discharge of patients while remaining under the care of clinicians. Doccla’s virtual wards have achieved a 29% reduction in Emergency Admissions and a 20% reduction in A&E attendance.

The cash-flow positive start-up will use the new funds to invest in its technology, including predictive analytics tools and integrations with the latest medical wearables and journal record systems, as well as expanding clinical capacity to support NHS Trusts’ staffing rota, particularly out of hours. Doccla also plans to expand into new European healthcare markets.

Doccla’s development was propelled by the pandemic as it scaled virtual wards in minimal time to serve overwhelmed hospitals as well as recovering COVID patients and chronic respiratory and heart patients. It provides remote patient monitoring services across several NHS Trusts. The medtech start-up offers an end-to-end service and enjoys one of the highest patient compliance rates in the industry, exceeding 95%, even among older and multimorbid patients.

Doccla now offers support for the NHS in combating long waiting lists, with clinical pathways for 20+ patient groups, including in pre- and post-op procedures.

Dag Larsson, CEO and co-founder of Doccla said: “Our end-to-end virtual ward services are extremely easy for the care provider to take on and extremely hard for them to ignore. The NHS now faces a challenging winter season and we’re evolving our technology to support care providers - giving them the extra clinical capacity and making it easy for hospitals to open up virtual wards. We could not be prouder to have Giant and Speedinvest supporting us.”

Cameron McLain, managing partner & co-founder from Giant Ventures, added: "We are inspired by Doccla's mission to deliver world-class care outside the four walls of a hospital. They provide a vital solution for a strained healthcare system, delivering a product that improves the patient experience and tackles cost. Doccla has the potential to transform the traditional healthcare industry and we are thrilled to be supporting Martin, Dag, and the team on this exciting journey."

Click here to find out more about Doccla in an interview with The MedTalk Podcast.