Holly Health has now reached £1.5 million investment with support from the Women Angels of the North angel syndicate and NorthInvest.
The health app aims to give personalised care that promotes habit-forming change for physical and mental health.
Guided by clinical psychological evidence, the app acts as a digital health and wellbeing coach for its 4,000 active monthly users.
“We’re incredibly pleased to announce this milestone in our company’s journey. Thanks to these two angel investment networks, we will be able to bring our services to over 50,000 more waiting patients and expand our primary care services in the North of the UK,” said co-founder and CEO Grace Gimson.
Leeds-based non-profit NorthInvest provides funding to Northern-based tech startups through its wide-scale co-investment community. Since the beginning of 2022 NorthInvest has facilitated 27 deals amounting to £22m in investment.
Gimson was inspired to create Holly Health back in 2020 after seeing the negative effects of diet culture on family members. Using her experience working at Deliveroo and Scape Technologies, she decided to launch a health app that was dedicated to high social responsibility.
Holly Health has created a tangible line of support that can improve a patient’s long-term baseline health.
“With the help of the Women Angels of the North and NorthInvest, as well as our amazing GP partners, mental health practitioners, and commercial officers, Holly Health has worked with the NHS to provide out-of-hospital support to thousands of patients,” added Gimson.
“This allows them to make long-term changes to their behaviours and improve their health on their own terms.”
NorthInvest board director Helen Oldham said: “We want the North of England to be the natural home of new innovative tech start-ups, and Holly Health is leading the way in HealthTech.
“We’re proud to have supported Holly Health in its investment journey and excited to see the incredible support it’s giving to its users.
“NorthInvest will continue to bridge the geographical and gender funding gap by supporting the abundant talent in the North.”