Smart phone diagnostics firm secures £4.5m in funding round

'TestCard’, which allows people to diagnose common conditions and diseases using the camera on their mobile phone, has secured £4.5 million in its latest funding round. 

Secured via corporate finance and venture capital firm ‘West Hill’, TestCard will use the new wave of funding for new product development, advancing regulatory applications, international expansion and further product launches. It will also help bridge the business through to its Series ‘A’ round, currently anticipated for the second quarter of 2021.

With the aim of giving people control over their health and taking further strain off the NHS, Testcard’s at-home UTI testing kit, which launches in November, turns a smartphone camera into a clinical grade scanner, providing results which can then be shared with a GP or other healthcare professional. The latest investment will help Testcard continue to disrupt the emerging health-at-home sector, which aims to improve healthcare outcomes by enabling more people to access medical diagnostic testing at home through mobile application-based technology.  

TestCard was founded after business partners Dr Andrew Botham and Luke Heron saw a problem with the way people traditionally accessed health tests. Often an extremely difficult and time-consuming process, TestCard was launched to plug part of this gap. 

Chris Craig-Wood, chief commercial officer at TestCard, said: “We are delighted to secure this level of funding while still in our early stages as a business. It’s clear that diagnostic testing is an attractive opportunity in the current climate. This level of investor confidence speaks volumes about our ambitious growth plans in delivering disruptive, at-home healthcare solutions to the market across multiple territories.”

This latest milestone caps off a phenomenal period of growth at the Scarborough based company. In January 2019, TestCard won the ‘Top Emerging Technology’ award at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The award typically celebrates new product releases from established tech giants such as Google, Apple and Samsung. The pandemic has further enhanced the relevance and timeliness of the TestCard product proposition, especially as the speed that healthcare is migrating from clinics and hospitals back to the home accelerates.

Robert Caie, managing partner of West Hill Capital, said: “West Hill was most impressed with TestCard’s management team and technology and believed that the company would make a significant addition to our portfolio. TestCard is now perfectly positioned to benefit from a new world where home testing for a multitude of medical conditions or illnesses has become necessary in order to alleviate the strain on our healthcare services.”

Alongside UTI tests, TestCard is working to develop diabetic screening, pregnancy and ovulation tests, kidney function and a drugs misuse test.