What is THENA Capital: The UK’s First Early-Stage MedTech Venture Capital Firm Changing Healthcare

Here is something most people in UK healthcare already sense but rarely say out loud: the funding system for early-stage MedTech has been broken for a long time. Good science dies on the vine. Brilliant founders run out of runway before they get a real shot. And the investors who could help are often too generalist, too slow, or simply not paying attention to the right problems. That is the gap THENA Capital walked into. And they walked in deliberately.

What is THENA Capital?

THENA Capital is a London-based venture capital firm built specifically for early-stage medical technology companies. Founded in 2021. Three partners. One mission: back UK MedTech companies that are genuinely changing how healthcare is delivered and make sure they actually make it.

The reality is, most venture funds treat healthcare as one category among many. THENA Capital treats it as the only category. It is the UK’s first early-stage specialist MedTech venture fund. And the team behind it is all-female, which is not just a talking point. It is a first in UK venture capital history, and it says something real about who built this firm and why.

THENA Capital is not trying to be everything to everyone. It is focused, intentional, and sector-deep in a way that generalist funds simply are not. That specificity is the whole point.

What Does THENA Capital Invest In?

Two things. Digital health platforms and fast-track medical devices. That is it. No scope creep, no chasing trends.

Every company THENA Capital backs sits somewhere in a very specific set of clinical areas: chronic conditions, cardiovascular disease, oncology, mental health, women’s health, and care delivery. And here is the part that matters most: every single investment has to clear the same bar. Strong clinical need. Validated technology. A real path to scale. And the potential to become the defining company in its category.

So when you hear “early-stage,” do not picture a napkin pitch. THENA Capital is investing in companies that have already done the hard scientific work. The fund comes in to help them do the commercial work.

Initial cheques run from £500,000 to £1 million at the seed stage. Fund I is designed to back around 25 companies over its life. It is a disciplined model. And discipline, in venture capital, is rarer than it sounds.

THENA Capital’s Fund: How Much Have They Raised?

Let’s be honest, the fundraising story here is genuinely impressive.

THENA Capital held its first close at £27 million in March 2025. Commitments came in from Firebird Collective, This Day Foundation, and Baroness Martha Lane Fox, the co-founder of Lastminute.com, among others. By August 2025, that number had grown to nearly £34 million at a second close. And by mid-2026, the fund hit its final close at £45 million.

The cornerstone backer? The British Business Bank, which committed up to £30 million through its Enterprise Capital Funds programme. That made THENA Capital the first all-female general-partner-led fund in the history of that program. That is not a small thing.

But look beyond the headline number. Look at who else is in the room. Mirjam Staub-Bisang, chair and senior advisor at BlackRock Switzerland. Patrick Healy, CEO of Hellman & Friedman. Senior figures from GSK, Novartis, and AstraZeneca. These are not passive cheque writers. These are people who can open doors in the markets THENA Capital’s portfolio companies need to enter.

And more than half of the fund’s limited partners are women. That tells you something about the values baked into this firm from day one.

Who Are the Founders of THENA Capital?

Three people built this. And it is worth understanding each of them because the firm’s edge comes directly from who they are.

Dr. Pamela Walker Geddes holds a PhD in medical sciences. She spent years advising pharmaceutical and MedTech companies globally before co-founding THENA Capital, and she completed an Executive MBA at Oxford Saïd. She is the scientific and strategic anchor of the team.

Esther Reynal de St Michel Richardot is the co-founder and managing partner. She brings over 15 years as a venture capital investor and healthcare strategist, with an MBA also from Oxford Saïd. She has backed and advised MedTech companies across the UK, Europe, and the US. She knows how deals are built. And more importantly, she knows how they fall apart.

Tatum Getty is a founding general partner with an MBA from USC Marshall School of Business. Her background runs through consumer health, wellness brands, and the US market. She has worked with companies like Mattel and SoulCycle. That sounds like an unusual path into MedTech. It is. And it is exactly what makes her irreplaceable in this partnership.

Put the three of them together and you get something you rarely see in early-stage MedTech: clinical depth, deal experience, and real commercial firepower. All three have signed the Investing in Women Code, committing to support female entrepreneurship in the UK. It is not a PR move. It is consistent with everything else they do.

Which Companies Has THENA Capital Invested In?

In its first year of investing, THENA Capital backed five companies. Five. That is a focused portfolio, not a scatter-shot one.

Plexāā is the one to watch right now. The company launched its BLOOM43 product in the US and entered a development collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, which joined the cap table. For a seed-stage startup, getting the Mayo Clinic on board is not a minor milestone. That is a signal.

Salient Bio received UK CE-marked in vitro diagnostic status from the MHRA for its IBD diagnostic test. Regulatory clearance at seed stage. That is rare.

Heim Health was selected for the 2026 NHS Innovation Accelerator cohort, one of the most competitive early-stage programs in UK healthcare. Sanome completed its seed round with co-investment from THENA’s own LP network. And Zonova closed a £2.1 million seed round led by THENA Capital in May 2026, working on antimicrobial materials for infection-resistant medical devices.

Taken together, the portfolio runs the full clinical pathway. Diagnosis. Treatment. Post-surgical monitoring. Patient support. That is not accidental.

Why Does THENA Capital Focus on Women’s Health?

Here is the kicker. Female-only founding teams still receive around just 6% of all venture capital. That number has barely moved since 2016. Not 6% of a small market. 6% of the whole thing. In 2024.

THENA Capital looked at that and decided it was not just unfair. It was a commercial mistake.

A quarter of Fund I is earmarked specifically for women’s health. But the gender-smart approach is not just about writing cheques to women’s health companies. It is about recognizing that when your investment team does not reflect the diversity of the patient population, you miss things. You misjudge risk. You overlook markets that are bigger than you think.

So THENA Capital backs companies and founders who build products with both men and women in mind throughout development and commercialization. Not because it looks good. Because it produces better companies. The reality is, inclusive product thinking and better financial returns are not in tension. They tend to go together.

How Does THENA Capital Help Startups Expand to the US?

This is where THENA Capital earns its keep in a way most early-stage funds never even attempt.

UK MedTech founders are exceptional at science. At building clinical evidence. At navigating NICE and the MHRA. But the US is a completely different game. The NHS is one system. The American market is hundreds of fragmented systems, each with its own payer logic, procurement process, and decision-maker hierarchy. British founders land in the US and, often, freeze.

Tatum Getty spent years in the American healthcare and wellness industry before moving to London. She has seen both sides. And she built that transatlantic knowledge into THENA Capital’s operating model from the start.

The firm runs a “Future of HealthTech Hub” transatlantic commercial network. Its LP base of GSK, AstraZeneca, Novartis, and Hellman & Friedman executives gives portfolio companies real relationships, not just introductions. Plexaā’s partnership with the Mayo Clinic is the early proof that this model works. THENA Capital also took the symbolic step of visiting the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square, a signal of where it expects its companies to go.

For UK MedTech founders thinking about the US, this is not a small thing. The right investor in the US expansion game changes everything.

The Bigger Picture

THENA Capital raised £45 million. Backed five companies. Delivered early results that most seed-stage investors would be proud of at Series B. And did it as the UK’s first early-stage specialist MedTech fund, led by the first all-female GP team ever backed by the British Business Bank.

But the bigger picture is this: the best medical innovations in the UK have historically struggled to become the global companies they deserve to be. Funding gaps. Commercial blind spots. A complicated US market nobody adequately prepared them for.

THENA Capital is building the firm that should have existed a decade ago. It is early days. But the direction is clear. And the team behind it has no intention of slowing down.

THENA Capital Raises £45M

THENA Capital Business Model