Arete and electronRx buoyed by Tech Nation’s Rising Star status

Two Cambridge companies, Arete Medical Technologies and electronRx, have made it to the final five in TechNation’s Rising Stars competition for the East of England.

TechNation is a London-based business management consultancy which fuels the growth of founders, leaders and scaling companies helping to positively transform societies, economies and outcomes.

The Rising Stars competition, now in its fourth year, recognises the UK’s early-stage tech scaleups with the highest potential.

Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries says: "These technology Rising Stars are helping us solve some of the greatest challenges of our time and creating high-quality and well-paid jobs up and down the country. Capitalising on the huge potential of tech is a crucial part of our mission to level up and we are backing businesses with pro-innovation policies and supporting people to get the skills they need to thrive."

Previous years’ Rising Stars regional winners have included Selazar (from Northern Ireland), Circa5000 (from the North West) and SeedLegals (from London), who have received a combined £33.79m in investment to date, demonstrating the ability of the Rising Stars regional winners to scale quickly, and their potential to become the UK’s tech ‘unicorns’ (companies with valuations of $1bn+) of the future.

The regional winners have been selected by a panel of more than 50 judges – industry experts with extensive experience in starting and scaling tech businesses – based on their value proposition, competitive advantage, market traction, team experience and potential to scale.

Arete Medical Technologies – ‘Commended’ in the ‘Ones to Watch’ category at this year’s Cambridge Independent Science & Technology Awards – is developing a medical device and digital health platform to help people and their health care team manage severe/unstable chronic respiratory disease.

CEO Graeham Douglas, a PhD from the University of Cambridge Engineering Department, founded Arete in 2017. Graeham was a competitive swimmer for Cambridge University, but his struggles with asthma forced him to retire from the sport. The company is based at Allia’s Future Business Centre.

Graeham said: “One billion people live with a chronic respiratory condition and four million die preventable deaths. Our mission is to help change that by supporting those people to live longer, healthier lives.

“We transform the lives of chronic respiratory patients by empowering people through self-management and remote monitoring, combining specialist grade measurements and powerful predictive software in an at-home solution.”

Graeham reports that clinicians and potential partners are already expressing interest.

“We are days away from finishing our latest prototype that we’ve been working on since April. We have some exciting projects for clinical research studies in asthma and long Covid, and a few more we’re working on setting up. We also expect to attain some important regulatory milestones.

“We have a lot we’re looking forward to in 2022. A lot of groundwork has gone into the foundation of the project, and we’re now at a place where we’re at or soon approaching some tangible milestones that we’ll be able to share more details about in the new year.”

Meanwhile, Chesterton Road-based electronRx is a deep-tech company founded by Dr Bipin Patel to bring together an interdisciplinary team of world-class scientists and engineers who would transform healthcare delivery and disease treatments.

Now a team of 22, Dr Bipin says the electronRx mission is to “build the interface between technology and the human body that will usher in a new therapeutic paradigm, transforming how we deliver healthcare and treat disease.”

Ellie Drave, head of marketing and communications at electronRx, said: “We are delighted to be recognised as a Rising Stars Regional Winner in a region with such fierce competition as Cambridge – one of the world’s leading tech hubs full of companies who, like us, are working on the cutting-edge of deep tech discovery and innovation to solve big global problems. The chronic disease epidemic is crippling our healthcare systems with no signs of abating.

“Our scalable disease management tools are transforming how we deliver healthcare and treat these conditions, enabling a shift from reactive to proactive care. We have a fast-growing, world-class team ready to further capitalise on the renewed appetite for digital health technologies post-Covid to skyrocket our success and improve quality of life for chronic disease patients across the globe in 2022.”

Esme Caulfield, competitions lead at Tech Nation, concluded: “From revolutionising modern healthcare and disrupting the finance sector to transforming education and tackling climate change, each of these fast-growing regional early-stage tech companies is helping us improve our economy, society and quality of life. This year’s Regional Winners represent the brightest and the best of UK tech and talent, and I’m excited to see what they do next.”