OXFO VENTURES RESPONDING TO COVID-19

Nye Health are now giving over 10 million patients across the UK the opportunity to speak with their GP - both practice and hospital GPs- through an encrypted NHS-compliant communications platform. 

WHAT THEY NEED NOW:

• Referral to your local clinicians, GP practices or hospitals
• Marketing & communications support - amplify and help them spread the word
• Support from within UK Government
• Introductions and networks in international health systems and ministries
• Investment

Press:

23 April 2020, Express News, NYE HEALTH: Free call and video service brings patients and their doctors safely together

21 April 2020, BBC News, Coronavirus: The Tech Minnows Changing the NHS

1 April 2020, Metro, I created vital tech for the NHS and I’m giving it away for free

15 April 2020, BBC News, Coronavirus: Intensive care video chat for relatives

iLoF is developing a low-cost, rapid stratification tool for COVID-19 infection and clinical outcome risk assessment, targeted at asymptomatic, but strategic/high-risk patients. They are working with European hospitals to stratify tens of thousands of patients daily.

WHAT THEY NEED NOW:

• Networks and introductions to leading institutions in healthcare in the UK (and abroad where relevant) to collect COVID-19 samples. This will help, alongside their current partners, to develop better quality data 
• Funding and grants – They require additional funding to fast-track technological development and hire additional team members 
• Sector (and non-sector)-specific experts and mentors 

Press: 13 April 2020, Sifted, These 19 European startups have pivoted in the face of coronavirus

Albus Health have developed a small non-contact device that can automatically and continuously monitor a cough, respiratory rate and other symptoms at home to help experts understand disease progression, symptom severity, diagnosis of COVID-19 and identifying those who need care before it is an emergency.

WHAT THEY NEED NOW:

• Contact with researchers working on COVID-19 so they can help them get key insights on disease and symptom progression
• Short chats with clinicians or healthcare authorities to help understand how they can make this available to them
• Funding, resources and expertise (listed below) to make this scalable:
  • Data scientists (time series analysis) (mid/senior)
  • Fullstack developers (senior)
  • Redesigning for bulk manufacturing

Archangel Imaging are developing and enhancing their proprietary technology, working with several key partners to offer automated temperature and fever detection cameras, integrated with follow-up support services, that work right out of the box. These will be used to support governments, hospitals, companies with essential workers, and the police.

WHAT THEY NEED NOW:

• Experts and mentors who might be able to support within tech, roll-out and hardware development
• Introductions to key networks and essential businesses still open during the lockdown, to roll-out this solution as soon as possible
• Capital and funding – they are now moving away from priority areas to support the COVID-19 pandemic, and need fast-tracking and accelerating technological development. They are also keen to bring in additional hires to make this happen as soon as possible.

Press: 13 April 2020, Sifted, These 19 European startups have pivoted in the face of coronavirus

Novoic are co-developing a medical app in collaboration with experts, with help from DeepMind, the NHS and Clifford Chance. The app will provide triaging/screening for suspected COVID-19 cases based on cough sounds and other medical data from thousands of patients.

WHAT THEY NEED NOW:

• Expert advice and mentoring – they are keen to build advisory relationships with leading experts in deep learning, NLP, speech processing, linguistics and neurological disease
• Talent – they are looking for an outstanding Lead Engineer to help them productionise their research, develop their HIPAA-compliant architecture, grow out a full-stack/DevOps team, and build a world-class engineering organisation
• Academic collaborations – they are actively looking for more collaborations with universities, hospitals and industry partners for grant applications and co-publishing research.

Ufonia is developing its AI-telemedicine solution to support the huge backlog of clinical procedures that are currently being cancelled due to COVID-19. Already in development at one NHS Trust, they are aiming to support the NHS by automating post-surgery review, increasing capacity for healthcare providers and front-line staff, as well as significantly reducing costs.

WHAT THEY NEED NOW:

• Partnerships with technology organisations who can catalyse their current product, pilot and plans through additional technical and business development support
• Champions from regional and national bodies who can help direct the team to the areas of greatest need, and smooth the path for testing, commissioning and scaling the system.

Smash Medicine are providing their research-backed EdTech platform to over six major European Universities and the Spanish Council for Medical Students to support their learning free of charge.

WHAT THEY NEED NOW:

• Introductions to Higher Education institutions in the UK, Europe, US and beyond
• Experts and mentors to help scale the platform

Scoodle have supported over 30,000 students over the last 2-weeks, providing all students across the UK with the ability to have their Q&A tutoring service free of charge to support their education at home.

WHAT THEY NEED NOW:

• Connections to education leaders and policymakers across the UK
• Experts and mentors understanding of how best to roll this out across the UK, Europe and US. They want everyone to have the support they need to continue learning
• Access to incredible talent who can support them to build Scoodle into a bigger brand online and globally.

Appli are setting up key partnerships with educational charities across the UK, to help university applicants from under-represented backgrounds who are struggling without good admissions support from their schools, to have access to the best data and information to begin applications.

WHAT THEY NEED NOW:

• Introduction & networks – they are looking for introductions to educational charities and large partners within EdTech who can support as potential distribution channels
• Expert guidance and mentors – they are keen to have access to experts/mentors to advise on go-to-market strategy and potential partners in the EdTech space
• Press contacts - in order to raise awareness of how they can help students they want to connect with

INFOGRID are already saving the NHS over 10,000 hours a year by automating manual checks - like pharmacy storage, bed occupancy or legionella monitoring across 120 sites. They are now gearing up to take this to the next level during the pandemic.

• Awareness. INFOGRID is saving the NHS 10,000 hours a year right now, primarily of nursing time, but that could be 70,000 hours a day (8750 shifts daily) going back to care and priority tasks. Amongst businesses, this number would be even greater.
• Introducations. They're hiring, and would love any volunteer help people have to offer; know a design and marketing wizard with strong Squarespace skills? Or know a dedicated developer with Python, Django and AWS skills? 
• Access. Introductions to key decision-makers at large NHS trusts to get these time-saving solutions in place in their facilities as quickly as possible

Oxwash has introduced contactless collections and enhanced sterilisation wash protocols to support Oxfordshire NHS hospitals and GP practices with their overwhelming laundry needs, as well as raising funds to offer 5,000 free washes to NHS workers and vulnerable individuals.

OXWASH are now working with the Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine trials, laundering the scrubs and uniforms that the study doctors, nurses and volunteers will be using to perform the trials. They will also be working with the NHS to see how they can support their vital services, and launder medical staff’s extra personal protective equipment (PPE). 

WHAT THEY NEED NOW:

• Contacts within Oxfordshire NHS GP Practices, hospitals and hubs who would benefit from this COVID-19 response laundry service
• Expert guidance and mentorship as to who might be able to roll this out across Oxford and London to support different NHS Trusts
• Expert contacts within the viral sterilisation and deep cleaning space to support Oxwash in their COVID-19 Innovate UK grant application
• Support for their GoFundMe fundraising campaign to offer 5000 free washes to NHS workers: https://www.gofundme.com/f/oxwash-donate-a-wash

Inside Oxford's war on Covid-19, 11 May 2020, Telegraph 

Twitter Cofounder invests in laundry start-ups £1.4m funding round, 4 May 2020, Telegraph 

Oxwash Oxford laundry service helps the NHS, 1 April 2020, Oxford Mail

myo is now working with over 100 care homes, and is making its secure social network and communications mobile app platform available for free, so that families and vulnerable relatives can keep in touch with one another. In the past month their user base has more than doubled, and they have reconnected an additional 2000+ families to their loved ones through the myo service. They are now teaming up with Caring Homes Group (CHG) - one of the UK's largest providers in elderly care - to trial the product in its care homes across the UK.

WHAT THEY NEED NOW:

• Connections, partnerships and networks to care homes/anyone in the care industry who may be able to support the further roll-out of this solution
• Access to funds to enable them to rapidly scale
• Volunteers from any background to help roll out myo nationwide for free to help the care sector. Sign up here >>
• Networks of press contacts to raise awareness of what they offer

Press, The best medicine against loneliness: being there for each other, 3 April 2020, drk-wohlfahrt

This way you can keep in touch with your grandparents despite Corona, 23 March 2020, berliner-zeitung