Naq raises €6M to secure NHS digital transformation

UK and Netherlands-based cybersecurity and compliance company Naq has successfully closed a €6 million Series A funding round to accelerate its mission to help health technology companies meet essential NHS standards amid rising cyber threats and regulatory delays.

The investment was made by Automate Health, providing Naq with access to the groups healthtech Saas operating best practices, long term capital base and advisor network, including industry veterans Dan Taylor and Pam Garside. Automate Health is a private company backed by a leading global family office, the Steyn Group, with a management team with a strong track record in scaling Saas companies.

Co-founded by GDPR lawyer Nadia Kadhim and former NATO cybersecurity expert Chris Clinton, in 2020, Naq became the market’s first automated compliance platform tailored specifically for digital healthcare. It is a single platform to assure digital health technologies continuously meet regulatory requirements across cyber security, privacy and clinical safety.

The company emerged from the UK Government’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) flagship cyber innovation Accelerator programme.

It is currently the compliance safeguard for more than 150 vital health technologies that serve the NHS, including SISU Health, Kidney Beam, Melo, Virtual Ward Technologies, and Oxford Dynamics, and has seen over 300% year-on-year revenue growth.

Commenting on the investment, Matt Taylor, CEO Automate Health, said: “Automate Health backs standout companies solving systemic inefficiencies and compliance challenges in healthcare. Naq is exactly that: an industry-leading platform with a loyal customer base, sticky revenue and growing demand as cybersecurity becomes mission-critical across health systems.”

Nadia Kadhim, Co-Founder and CEO, Naq, added: “As the NHS shifts from analogue to digital, protecting patient data and systems is vital. With this funding our technology will help even more NHS suppliers to meet security standards without complexity or the excessive cost of consultancy offerings, saving innovators more than 180,000 hours or £20,000 per compliance standard.”

Naq will use the funding to bring their unique software led compliance capability to a wider base of organisations that require fast, efficient compliance in Cyber Essentials, Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) and NHS Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC) as a cost effective and efficient alternative to expensive consulting-based offerings.

The investment will see the organisation accelerate product development, expanding its AI capabilities and adding additional standards to its compliance platform, including Medical Device Regulation, ISO 42001, SOC2 and HIPAA. It will also see its clinical and cybersecurity teams grow – advancing its mission to become the default infrastructure for digital health compliance in the UK and across Europe.

For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and big-hitters in the startup ecosystem.