Aviva Ventures to invest in ‘young digital and tech firms’ with new £150m cash injection

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The business will first fund a London-based diagnostic imaging platform

Aviva has committed a further £150m to its corporate venture capital fund – Aviva Ventures.

Ben Luckett, chief innovation officer at Aviva, said that the fund would be used to “make early stage investments in promising young digital and tech firms”.

In a statement released today (17 April 2023), the insurer added that it hoped the move would bring new opportunities and insights into emerging technology and customer trends to the business.

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It said the fund’s first investment was in London-based Scan.com, with £1.5m being invested into the medical services business.

It aims to help individuals and organisations book diagnostic scans such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasounds and xrays.

Luckett said: “Innovation is central to Aviva’s strategy and our ambition to deliver great outcomes for our customers.

“Our investment in Scan.com is a statement of our intent – they are growing rapidly, have a unique customer proposition and are already leading the way on medical imaging services in the UK.

”We are really excited to support Scan.com’s development and growth.”

‘Slow-moving industry’

With the support of Aviva and five other investors, Scan.com announced that it had raised a total of $12m (£9.7m) in a Series A round of funding.

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Charlie Bullock, co-founder and chief executive at Scan.com, said that the business was “thrilled to have such strong support from Aviva” as it continued to focus on expanding its presence in the UK.

He added: “The capital will be used to continue to improve access to diagnostic imaging and medical screening exams through our consumer facing marketplace and application programming interfaces (API).

“This round would not have been possible without the incredible effort and tenacity shown by our entire team, who have built Scan.com at such a fast pace in what is traditionally a very slow-moving industry.”