Foresight Group (Foresight), a private equity and infrastructure investment manager, has made a GBP1.7 million growth capital investment into Hexarad Group Limited (Hexarad), a high growth UK teleradiology company, as part of a GBP2.3 million funding round.
Hexarad is an early stage, high growth healthcare technology company, providing teleradiology services to NHS Trusts and UK private healthcare customers. Headquartered in London, the Company was founded in 2016 by a group of NHS consultant radiologists and differentiates through its clinical leadership and technology-led proposition.
Demand for radiology services is increasing rapidly, driven by factors including ageing population, growing prevalence of chronic disease and advances in imaging technology. A relative shortage of radiologists, coupled with growing demand for specialisation and out of hours reporting, means that teleradiology will play an increasingly important role in the delivery of critical services to patients, particularly given the backlog in care caused by Covid-19.
Foresight’s investment into Hexarad will enable the company to support more NHS and private healthcare customers, adding deeper capability and specialisation to its reporter network and further improving the technology which is core to its customer and radiologist experience.
Commenting on the investment, Farzana Rahman, CEO of Hexarad, says: “As radiologists, we’ve had first-hand experience of the growing demands within medical imaging and the tremendous pressure faced by radiology departments and hospitals. We founded Hexarad with the mission of creating excellence in medical imaging through developing innovative, clinically-led solutions that help patients get diagnosed more swiftly. We’re excited to be working with Foresight through this next phase of growth, providing the opportunity to build value for our customers.”
Matt McLoughlin, Senior Investment Manager at Foresight, adds: “The services that Hexarad provides are critical to the provision of patient care as the importance of medical images continues to increase. We are investing in an outstanding management team and we look forward to supporting them in achieving their vision over the coming years.”
James Livingston, Partner at Foresight, says: “Foresight is committed to supporting high potential healthcare companies in the UK. The investment in Hexarad follows prior health sector investments by Foresight including ABL Health, Mi Healthcare and Hospital Services Limited.”
Foresight is dedicated to contributing to a healthier society as demonstrated through its consistent activity in the health sector over the past 12 months. Foresight funds made four new investments in the sector in the period across diagnostics, software and services to the clinical trials market and electronic document management solutions for NHS Trusts. Foresight’s existing healthcare portfolio continues to perform strongly, most notably Hospital Services Limited and Biofortuna, which have seen revenues double and grow tenfold respectively. The success of these investments to date demonstrates Foresight’s ability to support innovative healthcare businesses achieve their growth plans across the UK.
