King's Health Partners Ventures (now Meridian Health Ventures)

King's Health Partners Ventures, now rebranded as Meridian Health Ventures, is the United Kingdom's first NHS-backed venture capital fund, founded in 2021 in London. Born from the King's Health Partners academic health science centre — a collaboration between King's College London, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (combined turnover £3.7 billion, 4.8 million patients per year, 40,000 staff) — the fund invests in early-stage digital health, medtech, and enterprise healthcare. The firm leads rounds in its portfolio, with checks typically in the $500K to $3 million range. The success of the initial NHS venture experiment led to significant expansion. In 2025, Meridian Health Ventures launched a €44.7 million transatlantic fund — the world's first transatlantic healthtech fund — backed by UK NHS trusts (Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital, and UCL Hospitals) alongside US healthcare giant Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. In October 2024, the firm also launched Europe's first dedicated mental health technology fund, Innovations in Mental Health (IMH Fund), with the Wellcome Trust as anchor investor and South London and Maudsley NHS as partner. The team of 5 manages 13 portfolio companies whose solutions are now deployed across more than 100 NHS Trusts. Portfolio companies include Doccla (virtual ward platform), deepc (AI radiology), Patchwork (NHS workforce management), Tympa Health (ear care), Apian (drone delivery for NHS), PocDoc (point-of-care testing), MediShout, and JAAQ (most recent investment, Series A, March 2026). Two exits have been recorded, including Phare Health in October 2025. Meridian's institutional relationships across NHS trusts, academic medical centers, and US hospital systems give portfolio companies a structural advantage: direct access to clinical validation environments, real patient populations, and procurement relationships that are typically inaccessible to early-stage healthtech startups.