Accelerator company Sapien Health raises £2m and rebrands to Surgery Hero

Headquartered in London, Surgery Hero, a company on the sixth cohort of the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator programme, is a digital clinic that helps people prepare for and recover from surgery at home. The £2 million of seed funding will be used to scale their solution to be able to support more people undergoing surgery, as they begin their expansion to the US where roughly 50 million major surgeries are performed each year.

Founded in May 2020, Surgery Hero has seen a spike in demand for its services as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1 in 8 people in England now on surgery waiting lists. They are currently commissioned by multiple Integrated Care Systems in the UK and committed to provide over 8,000 programmes for people currently awaiting surgery.

Members access the virtual programme via the Surgery Hero app, and each programme is unique to the individual, tailored according to their personal risk factors for surgery and upcoming procedure. Every Surgery Hero member is also paired with their own human, health coach, who supports them throughout the duration of the programme. Members can choose to communicate in a way that suits them — either through phone calls, video calls, text chats, or a combination.

Early results from the intervention have been impressive. In a recent study in collaboration with South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the average length of stay in hospital for patients following the Surgery Hero programme fell by more than a day, representing a significant cost saving.

Dr Matthew Beatty, CEO and Co-Founder of Surgery Hero, said: “We’ve been thinking about a name change for some time, as we wanted something that more accurately reflects our values and identity as a company. With the closure of this funding round, it felt like the right time to announce the change publicly. It’s a huge milestone for us, as we look to make our steps in the US market. Thank you to all of our investors for putting their faith in us, especially during what is a difficult time to be raising investment. DigitalHealth.London has played an important role in the story, as they actually made the initial introduction to Imran, who now joins our board having backed us as Investment Principal at LifeArc Ventures.”

Surgery Hero is part of the sixth cohort of the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator programme.

The DigitalHealth.London Accelerator is a collaborative programme funded by London’s three Academic Health Science Networks – UCL Partners, Imperial College Health Partners, and the Health Innovation Network, MedCity, CW+ and receives match funding from the European Regional Development Fund.