The Real Cost of a Digital Health MVP and How to Fund It

For digital health founders: what an MVP genuinely costs, the funding routes that fit your stage, and how to keep the business alive while you raise.

Register

Tuesday 13 October 2026

10:00 — 11:30 UK

Online — joining link emailed after you register

About This Session

The reality-check session

From nuom, Digital4Health UK and THRIVE for digital health founders. What an MVP genuinely costs to build, the funding routes available — grants, NIHR, DBT, angel money — why most applications fail on eligibility and cash flow, and a live update on a landscape that's shifting under everyone's feet, including the Innovate UK restructure.

Back yourself first, know the criteria, and keep the business alive while you raise.

Speakers

Joanne Bekis

Joanne Bekis

Co-Founder and CEO, Digital4Health UK Ltd

The UK Landscape: Funding Routes — NHS SBS, NIHR, DBT, Innovate UK, Gov and BBB Unlocking Pension Funds

Jo Bekis is Co-Founder and CEO of Digital4Health UK and UK Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation. She has spent her career supporting innovation companies as a business advisor and stakeholder engagement leader. Digital4Health UK leads Open Innovation days bringing together investors, R&D and international ecosystem development, and supports wider policy change. Jo has led initiatives including the Parliamentary Pathfinder NHS Scale Up awards, the Women's Healthcare and FemTech Summit supported by NIHR, and webinars delivered with NHS Shared Business Services.

You'll leave knowing

  • Update on NHS SBS open framework and next rounds
  • Focus on Women's Health funding
  • The changing landscape of UK business support and funds
Jon Rowley

Jon Rowley

CEO, THRIVE

Funding Routes, and Why Most Applications Fail

Jon Rowley is CEO of THRIVE, the health innovation consultancy he founded in 2024. He spent over a decade in the NHS, latterly as Head of Innovation, directing a portfolio of more than 80 projects and commercialising numerous innovations. Since founding THRIVE he has secured more than £2.3M in grant funding for medtech and healthtech companies. His interest is the unglamorous part: getting proven ideas past the pilot and into actual adoption.

You'll leave knowing

  • Which funding routes genuinely fit your stage — grants, NIHR, DBT, angel money
  • The eligibility and cash flow traps that kill applications before anyone reads the science
  • How to keep the business trading while you raise, and why backing yourself first changes your odds
Martin Sandhu

Martin Sandhu

Managing Director, nuom

The Real Cost of a Digital Health MVP

Martin Sandhu is Managing Director of nuom, a digital health design and engineering studio. He has spent 20+ years building products and helping founders in health, tech and regulated industries. Full bio to be confirmed.

You'll leave knowing

  • What a digital health MVP genuinely costs to design, build and validate
  • Where budgets blow up — and the scope decisions that keep them intact
  • How to plan a build that survives contact with regulation and the NHS
Register

Brought To You By

In partnership

nuomDigital4Health UKTHRIVEUKHLSI

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Tuesday 13 October, 10:00–11:30 UK · Online · Free