A HealthTech company transforming the delivery of paediatric care through personalised psychological support has raised £6 million in Series A funding.
London-based Little Journey is eyeing global growth following the investment round led by Par Equity and featuring Mercia Ventures, the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund I (NPIF I), Octopus Ventures, Calm/Storm Ventures, and angel investors with expertise in healthcare and life sciences.
Little Journey has a focus on the US healthcare market and has early adopters already in place Stateside.
The investment will also fund product enhancements, including the development of its scalable content plus interoperability and data collection capabilities.
“Securing this investment allows us to scale our impact across healthcare and life sciences, with a focus on easing the burden of paediatric clinical trials,” said Chris Evans, co-founder & CEO.
“While legislation has increased study numbers, specialist paediatric knowledge is still lacking in the industry. This has led to lower recruitment, adherence and trial completion rates compared to adult research.
“Little Journey is uniquely positioned to fill this expertise gap and tackle these challenges to advance global paediatric medicine. With the backing of Par Equity, Mercia Ventures, Octopus Ventures, and our wider investor network, we’re redefining how paediatric clinical trials are run and putting families at the heart of them.”
Sophie Copley, co-founder & CPO, said: “We’re ready to take our product capabilities to the next level. Little Journey already tailors support based on age, language, procedure, and trial protocol. With this Series A funding, we will enhance our data capabilities and further globalise our offering, enabling a data-driven, personalised model of care in paediatrics.
“This will drive impact for our growing international customer base in a patient-centric way. By empowering families with the right knowledge and resources at the right time, we believe we can help build a brighter, healthier future for all children across the globe.”
Little Journey’s own journey began in 2018. As an anaesthetic doctor and father, Dr Evans witnessed first-hand the distress faced by children and their families during hospital visits.
Coupled with the fact that over a quarter of the world’s population is under 18 years old, yet paediatric care remains chronically under-researched and under-funded, he and Copley joined forces, complemented by the latter’s expertise in human-centred product design.
The pair created the app to support children undergoing elective surgery, striving to provide the best possible support throughout healthcare interactions.
Little Journey has since evolved to assist thousands of young patients across the globe, is used in over 100 hospitals across 11 countries and has localised content in 20 languages. It holds a content repository to support children and families through 12 procedures including MRI, mental health and neurodevelopment assessment and blood tests, with more coming soon.
Alongside healthcare, Little Journey also has partnerships with top global pharmaceutical companies, improving the paediatric clinical trial experience. By reducing barriers to trial participation, the platform empowers families and helps life science organisations accelerate the development and approval of medicines for children.
Alongside the investment round, the company has also secured significant grant funding, with £2.09 million from the LEGO Foundation’s Play for All Accelerator and £493,000 from SBRI Healthcare.
These funds will support Little Journey’s ongoing projects, including enhancing app accessibility for children with disabilities and partnering with the LEGO Foundation to co-create solutions with neurodivergent children.