Website for cancer sufferers wins £1.6m funding
AN E-COMMERCE website designed to help make life more comfortable for those living with cancer has closed a £1.6million funding round.
The for-profit online store, Live Better With, supplies nonmedical products – from balms to mobility aids – to address symptoms and side effects of those undergoing treatments such as chemotherapy and surgery, and has recently partnered cancer charity Marie Curie. With Marie Curie product bundles, a donation from sales goes to the charity. The site is aimed at friends and family members of patients buying gifts for their loved ones as well as patients themselves.
After initial funding of £250,000, office space and access to support from Forward Partners last year, the latest funding round – led by venture capital firm Fig with Downing Ventures, Forward Partners, the London Co Investment Fund and angel investors – will be used to expand in the UK and abroad.
Founder Tamara Rajah, 33, who has a team of eight working at offices in London and New York, said: ‘We have had over half a million visitors now and we’ve got an online community of well over 20,000.’
Rajah, who had the idea after working on healthcare strategy at management consultancy McKinsey & Co, explained: ‘I spent seven years working on healthcare. I focused a lot on strategies for people with longterm conditions in the UK and in the US. I noticed that these people get good medical care, but because they’ve got longterm diseases, they have side effects and symptoms that can really affect their day-to-day lives. Those are less addressed by medical treatment.
‘I became frustrated that they don’t know about hundreds of non-medical products that can soothe side effects and make their lives a little more normal.’
Meanwhile, Katie Garner, 22, a retail assistant from Littlehampton, West Sussex, has launched not-for-profit Chemo Care Hampers after attending chemotherapy sessions with her mother and giving her ‘little pick me ups’.