Thena Capital has closed its first fund on £45 million ($60.4 million), the London venture firm announced this week, following a first close of £27 million in March 2025. The fund backs early-stage British medtech companies and is now fully closed.
The milestone is not just the money. Thena is the first all-female general partner team to gain backing from the British Business Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds programme, the state-backed scheme that underpins the fund.
where the money goes
Thena Capital invests in early stage UK digital health and medical devices. It plans to back around 25 companies, writing checks of £500,000 to £1 million at startup and then helping them scale in the United States.
Founded in 2021, the firm is led by co-founders Tatum Getty, Pamela Walker Geddes and Esther Reynal de St Michel Richardot, all healthcare industry veterans. Their strategy is “gender-smart,” supporting diverse teams and products created for both women and men.
Five companies in the first year
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The portfolio is already moving. Plexāā launched its BLOOM43 product in the US and added the Mayo Clinic to its profit table. Salient Bio has gained UK regulatory approval for an inflammatory bowel disease trial. Heim Health has entered the NHS Innovation Accelerator 2026. Sanome and Zonova round out the five.
An LP foundation built to deliver value
Sponsors are as precise as bets. More than half of Thena’s limited partners are women, and the list includes Baroness Martha Lane Fox, co-founder of Last Minute.com, chairwoman of BlackRock Switzerland and CEO of Hellman & Friedman. Senior managers from GSK, Novartis and AstraZeneca sit alongside him, providing exit routes and credibility, not just cash.
Why is it important
The increase occurs in a desolate context. The rise of AI in Europe has left femtech behindand all-female founding teams still keep around 6 percent of venture money, a share that has barely budged since 2016. An all-female managed fund, backing healthcare startups, runs counter to that.
It is also betting on a tough sector. Healthtech founders face difficult path to expansion in Europewhere investors often want trading proof in advance. and while UK venture funding has doubled this yearthe money is rolling into a few giant AI rounds, not early-stage medical devices. The UK digital health market is forecast to reach $7.45 billion by 2030.
Thena’s bet is that patient, specialized money can build companies that the generalist boom overlooks. A first fund of £45m is small compared to AI mega rounds. If he can convert five initial bets, one of them already in the United States, into outputs that demonstrate the model is the test of the coming years.
