Legal & General (L&G) is set to deploy £6 million of grant funding to HealthTech startups developing innovations in the healthy ageing market.

The insurer was selected by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to distribute the grant funding to early stage companies, small businesses and social enterprises, alongside equity investment from L&G as part of the Healthy Ageing Investment Accelerator.

The five-year initiative comprises investors committed to allocating the grant funding within the first two years.

L&G will invest and deploy the grant money in up to six HealthTech businesses that have a proactive, predictive and preventative advantage and which help to reduce cost and occurrence of ill-health conditions linked to the ageing process. It will also top up the grant funding with at least £6 million of its own capital, with the potential for further investment when the businesses continue to perform.

The retirement division’s ambition is to commit £24 million of its own capital over the five-year period to support ideas that help people enjoy healthier and more active lives in old age.

L&G's HealthTech focussed partnership with UKRI comes on the back of several investment drives in tech startups from the FinTech, PropTech and CleanTech sectors.

The link up with UKRI also follows L&G's acquisition of a minority shareholding in Current Health, a leading remote patient monitoring platform, which is changing the need for healthcare to take place in a centralised location and at the moment, supporting the COVID-19 response by helping monitor, manage and engage more patients at home, in order to increase hospital capacity and reduce front-line pressure.

Chris Knight, Chief Executive Officer, Legal & General retail retirement, said: “The partnership we are forging with UKRI is a fantastic public and private sector collaboration to support dynamic businesses in a market with lots of potential.

“We are seeing abundant opportunities emerge in ‘age-tech’ as businesses rise to the challenge of helping people live longer, happier and healthier lives – a mission we fully support."

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