Investor Focus: Simplyhealth Ventures

Simplyhealth Ventures has carved out a distinctive position in the UK health investment landscape. As the investment arm of Simplyhealth, a UK-focused health cash plan insurer, it bridges the priorities of an established health insurer with the agility of venture capital.  

Pratik Popat, venture capital investor at Simplyhealth Ventures, shares what the organisation looks for in a scalable healthtech and digital health business, where it sees the greatest future opportunity, and why consumer‑centred models will define the next wave of growth.

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Collaborating with innovators that match Simplyhealth Ventures’ vision

Simplyhealth Ventures invests directly from the group’s balance sheet. This approach enables the team to focus on businesses that align closely with the group’s purpose: improving access to healthcare for all in the UK, and also helping people manage their health at an earlier stage and more effectively. The team typically invests around Series A, backing digital health companies that have demonstrated product‑market fit and are ready to scale. 

Its portfolio reflects this philosophy. There are clear overlaps with alumni of HIN programmes, which support innovations set to tackle some of healthcare’s most persistent access and equity challenges. 

Popat singled out PocDoc, an alumnus of the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator, as a particularly compelling example of innovation beyond incremental change. By combining smartphone technology with diagnostic testing, PocDoc is reimagining how people access health checks for cardiovascular disease, shifting diagnostics from clinics into pharmacies, workplaces and homes. Its ambition to create an embedded healthcare layer echoes a central theme in Simplyhealth Ventures’ strategy: healthcare should integrate seamlessly into everyday life, rather than sit apart from it. 

Another alumnus, Peppy, addresses underserved life‑stage health needs, supporting people through menopause, fertility, parenthood and mental health with on‑demand digital access to clinicians. Elsewhere, Accelerating FemTech alumnus Daye is redefining gynaecological health through clinically‑backed diagnostics and cutting edge sanitary products, tackling women’s health challenges that have historically been overlooked, underserved or normalised. Both companies are looking to “digitise healthcare in a way that fits naturally into people’s everyday lives”. 

Healthcare priorities driving investment portfolio 

ThLooking ahead, Popat highlighted several areas of growing interest at Simplyhealth Ventures. Mental health and neurodiversity are increasingly important, particularly due to backlogs for autism and ADHD diagnosis. Beyond this, Simplyhealth Ventures look at the entire digital health space with a focus on predictive and preventative technologies that have the UK as one of their markets.  

For founders, Simplyhealth Ventures looks for deep domain expertise, operational rigour, and defensibility. Popat notes how companies with diversified customer-bases have the potential to unlock more opportunities for implementation, balancing public and private routes to scale. 

Patient use of AI will require structural changes in healthcare 

Yet the most profound shift, Popat argues, will be driven by access to information by patients. Over the next three to five years, he expects:

Consumers will be using AI a lot more to manage their personal health journeys: that’s going to be the biggest structural change, a greater number of informed patients.

Simplyhealth Ventures’ portfolio reflects a clear conviction about the direction of modern healthcare: earlier intervention, personalised support and models that strengthen people’s ability to manage their health. By backing evidence‑led, consumer‑centred innovation, the team is helping build a system that is more proactive and responsive to changing population needs.  

Learn more about Simplyhealth Ventures by visiting their website and connecting on LinkedIn. 

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