From BGV to successful exit: Aparito

We first met Dr Elin Haf Davies in 2014. As a former paediatric nurse from Great Ormond Street Hospital, she was frustrated by the stress, inconvenience and high failure rate of hospital-based clinical trials that could help some of her sickest patients.

Elin’s professional experience of this problem, her empathy for those affected by it and her insight in spotting how emerging wearable and mobile technologies could be applied to it exemplify what we look for in early-stage tech for good founders.

In 2015, we became the first investors in Elin’s newly established company, Aparito.  She began building a team and a prototype product.  From those early days we saw how Elin combined a methodical approach rooted in her research background with the ambition, determination and resilience gained through her formidable amateur sporting career.

Fast forward to December 2023 and Aparito had grown into a multi-million revenue business serving biotech, CRO and pharma clients across the globe from its Wrexham HQ, creating great jobs for tens of talented locally-based employees long before Ryan Reynolds came on the scene.

Joining the company for their Christmas lunch and annual staff awards that year was a joy - Elin and her senior team including Chris Frost, Aleksa Vukotic, Rashmi Narayama and Alex Guest had built an organisation that they were rightly proud of.  The talent, passion and purpose in the room was palpable and the potential was clear to see. 

Aparito’s platform, Atom5, has proven capabilities including proprietary digital endpoints, AI video analysis and co-designed patient reported outcomes.  It has been used in studies exploring therapies for conditions including neuronopathic Gaucher disease, Parkinson’s disease and long COVID.

Less than six months later, Aparito has just announced that it has joined forces with one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.  This acquisition presents a huge opportunity to scale the impact of Atom5; live clinical trials in which it is used will at least double over the next 1-2 years.

Writing this post is a huge privilege for BGV - it is genuinely fantastic to to have the opportunity to celebrate the success of a tech for good venture which has revolutionised its market, delivered tangible impact for patients and their families and is led by, in her own words, a farmer’s daughter and nurse from Wales.

It's been a pleasure to play a part in Aparito’s journey; from the BGV programme in 2015, via pre-seed to Series A follow-on investments and as a board observer.  I’m proud to confirm to Elin that she has indeed achieved the podium finish she sought - delivering one of the biggest exits to date for BGV Fund I.

“Our near 10 year journey with BGV has been epic. Female founders in med tech / life sciences are few and far between and I would not have been able to start on this journey without the funding and support from BGV. This exit and healthy return to BGV is a great endorsement of our vision and commitment to improving the patient experience of clinical trials! I’m very grateful to BGV and the team for making this possible”.

We wish the team at Aparito every success for this next chapter in their adventure and our heartfelt congratulations on all they’ve achieved so far.

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