Hesta Health raises £2M pre-seed to rebuild postnatal care
July 31, 2025
Hesta Health, a UK women's healthcare company building a digital-first postnatal care platform, has launched out of stealth with an oversubscribed £2 million pre-seed round led by Eka Ventures, with participation from Blue Lion Capital, Ascension Ventures, Samos Investments, and angel investors.
Postnatal care in the UK effectively ends at six weeks, despite the recovery from childbirth, both physical and mental, frequently extending well beyond that. Specialist services for pelvic health, lactation, and perinatal mental health sit across disconnected providers, with new mothers expected to navigate them alone at the point they are least equipped to. Hesta is targeting the two-year window after birth as the place to intervene, on the basis that earlier, joined-up care has compounding effects on long-term women's health outcomes.
The product combines an at-home health assessment, including a blood test, with a clinical review by a multidisciplinary team of postnatal doctors, physiotherapists, lactation specialists, and psychotherapists. A separate service, AskHesta, gives users clinician-backed answers from day one of recovery, with deeper assessments and ongoing care layered on top. The model is digital-first with in-person support when needed, and Hesta is regulated by the Care Quality Commission, which approved the company's registration in January 2026.
Hesta was incorporated in May 2025 and is co-founded by Dr Sujitha Selvarajah, an NHS Obstetrics and Gynaecology doctor with research and policy roles at Oxford and UCL, and Amanda Cupples, the former Managing Director of Northern Europe and MEA at Airbnb and a former CCO/COO of Babylon Health. The launch funding will go toward the digital product, clinical operations, regulatory work, and team build-out across product, engineering, and research.
Camilla Dolan, General Partner at Eka Ventures, called women's health a trillion-dollar opportunity and pointed to the combination of Selvarajah's clinical and policy background with Cupples's consumer and operating experience as the reason Eka led the round. The company cites McKinsey research estimating that women spend roughly 25% more of their lives in ill health than men, a gap the firm puts at around $1 trillion annually in lost economic output.
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