Gemini raises £1.4M in second round

Funding round completed

Gemini Biomedical Ltd has raised £1.4 million in a second round funding led by Spark Ventures, an early-stage venture capital company. Spark is investing £700,000 alongside existing investors, Alliance Fund Managers, which has invested £700,000 in this round through its Liverpool Seed Fund. Alliance previously invested £250,000 in Gemini in 2006.

Gemini Biomedical provides non-invasive medical screening services to, among others, life insurance and underwriters. The company’s HealthTrack software is used by a network of pharmacies contracted to Gemini, which perform health screening of an applicant and take non-invasive samples. These are then analysed by Gemini’s in-house laboratory.

Gemini says that using HealthTrack, life insurance companies are able to assess more accurately the actuarial risks and give speedier, more accurate quotations to applicants. This in turn significantly increases the take-up rate, enabling insurers to sign up more business at less risk.   In pilot trials, the convenience of using pharmacy examination rooms, coupled with in-house analysis and data capture in HealthTrack, was shown to halve the time taken to assemble comprehensive health screening data packages.

Gemini reached proof of concept in successful pilot trials with major insurance companies and a number of other trials are currently under way. Gemini’s HealthTrack screening service is being delivered through several pharmacy groups, including Lloyds and Co-Op.  The service is already available in around 60 pharmacies across the UK and the roll-out of pharmacy examination rooms is expected to increase significantly in the coming months.

Jonathan Gee, Head of Healthcare at Spark Ventures, said, “Healthcare screening is a market trend which is seeing unprecedented growth and we regard Gemini as being at the forefront of developments in the sector.  The addition of a strengthened management team, which brings a range of sector-specific experience, as well as significant and proven operational expertise, will also be instrumental in ensuring that the company is well positioned for future growth.”