Innovation grant for healthcare programme

Kaido secures £50,000 funding from Creative England.

Innovation Birmingham Campus-based Kaido has successfully secured a £50,000 investment from Creative England’s Interactive Healthcare Programme to market-test and accelerate the launch of their new online platform.

This announcement follows an impressive year for Kaido who, after a successful initial round of funding, has recently been accepted on to the Serendip Smart City Incubator at Innovation Birmingham’s new 42,149 sq ft iCentrum building. They will join the Digital Health Quarter and will co-locate with commercial partner, the West Midlands Academic Health Science Network, to market-test and further refine their service.

Kaido is a digital health and well-being platform which promotes learning and best practice. By using smart technology and access to world leading expertise, Kaido empowers individuals and their communities to make educated lifestyle choices.

Creative England is a non-profit organisation which mobilises public and private resources to invest in creative ideas across the games, TV, film and digital media industries. Kaido were selected to receive the funding following an intensive three month application and interview process with a panel of assessors including the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust and West Midlands Academic Health Science Network, who are partners on the programme. The investment will be utilised to develop, scale and market-test the platform across four initial key sectors including; corporate, insurance, public health and private gyms.

Richard Westman, founder at Kaido, said: “We are thrilled to have received this investment from Creative England; which will provide vital support as we continue to develop our software and push it out to market.

“The funding will help considerably as we look forward to joining iCentrum’s Serendip Smart City Incubator; enabling us to further extend our reach and knowledge by working alongside the West Midland Academic Health Science Network and other notable commercial partners.”

Kate Adam, Programme Manager at Creative England, said: “The West Midlands Interactive Healthcare Fund is for small creative and digital businesses who wish to bring innovative concepts to the NHS marketplace and we are delighted to be able to support Kaido with this investment at such a crucial stage of their development. We were really impressed with the team and the potential of the platform and the commercial partnerships. We look forward to hearing about their progress.”

A core element of Birmingham’s Knowledge Hub, the 11,845 sq ft Serendip Smart Cities Incubator is based on the first floor of iCentrum and co-locates promising start-up businesses with large commercial partners. Within these challenge-led incubators, the commercial partners help to mentor qualifying early stage tech companies and may, in turn, become customers or distribution channels for the start-ups.

Providing space for 400 high-value skilled tech jobs at any one time, iCentrum will generate £25 million of GVA per annum to the local economy and is the first building to be completed within Innovation Birmingham’s £40 million development zone. For more information on iCentrum, please visit: www.innovationbham.com