On the day when the BBC reports that the NHS is experiencing its ‘first sustained fall in GP numbers for 50 years’ it seems apt timing for a new healthcare technology company to unveil its plans to join the UK stock market.
Induction Healthcare wants to raise around £14.6m by selling shares at 115p to investors by listing on the UK’s junior AIM market.
CONNECTING HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
Induction Healthcare’s main product is simply called Induction. It is an free-to-use app available on both the Apple and Android app stores that connects healthcare professionals and admin staff in hospitals. It means professionals have quick access to essential hospital information as well as messaging and direct call functionality.
There are several testimonials from doctors on its website that explain how they use the app.
Induction has quickly established itself with NHS professionals, claiming 71,500 registered users in the UK including 44% of NHS doctors (excluding GPs) and 13% of all NHS healthcare professionals, as at 28 February 2019.
The app is also gaining traction overseas with 4,700 healthcare staff using Induction in places like Australia, the US, South Africa and Malta, implying total user growth of 42% in the six months to end February.
The plan is to keep the ‘freemium’ model but use the new growth funding to develop new advanced tools and features that hospitals and healthcare staff will be willing to pay for.
THE BIG BUT?
Yet to call the company and its technology young would be a sizeable understatement. Try embryonic.
The business was only set-up last year and looks set to remain pre-revenue for the time being. In the seven months to 30 September Induction Healthcare reports operating losses of £1m.
That makes it hugely risky as an investment going forward. Some may well wonder at the wisdom of trying to start a business effectively from scratch under the high pressure gaze of public markets when a few years under the wing of venture capital backing might have been in its better interests.
But if it can get the £14.6m of fresh funding it wants Induction Healthcare has the potential to make rapid progress. About half would go on working capital and product development, the other half, intriguingly, on acquisitions - that’s after repaying £1m due to founder Hugh Stephenson.
The test will come on twin fronts; can it rapidly build its user base, and can it get the planned advanced tools up and running fast, ones that healthcare people really will pay for?
