Tech Innovators 2015: Horizon Strategic Partners Ltd

Horizon Strategic Partners are one of our top 20 tech innovators for 2015.

Presenter: Mike Northall & Eamus Halpin

Job title: CEO & Design Mentor

Based in: Leeds

Founded in: 2007

No. of Employees: 6

Mike Northall

MN. Founder of Horizon, previously founder of CSF Group, technology company employing 200 staff and sold to Logicalis in 2007.

Eamus Halpin

Public and Private company CEO & Chairman. Corporate strategist. Technology design and process mentor. Horizon investor.

Recent Milestones

  • Sold MicroGuide to 26% of acute hospital trusts in UK since launch in 2013.
  • 30,000 UK registered users, most downloaded Healthcare App on App store in August 2014
  • Won Novartis Antimicrobial award in 2014 and Infection Control Prize awarded by NHS Dept of Health Innovation Challenge in 2015
  • Sold to first overseas customers in 2014

Upcoming Milestones

Marketing of MultiGuide in 2015 to existing and new MicroGuide users

Opening markets in Community and Primary Care

Expanding market opportunities in Australia, New Zealand and North America

New applications will be written and launched to healthcare markets in UK

Background Profile

Horizon was set up to focus on provision of technology in healthcare. Won consulting projects with Dept of Health and Bupa. Developed MicroGuide from initial work conducted by doctors at Southampton General Hospital.

Continue to develop MicroGuide as well as three new software products, due to be released in 2015.

Inside track

Horizon was borne out a desire to do something genuinely useful for the healthcare industry, positively impacting care. But don’t let that for a second fool you into thinking this is anything other than a potentially hugely profitable and scalable business. 

The market is expected to grow 10 fold to $26 billion in 2017, so co-
founders Mike Northall & Eamus Halpin very much had their business heads of when they came up with their MicroGuideTM product. 

Several loud voices in healthcare have started putting the threat of antibiotic resistance on a par with terrorism, so finding a solution is clearly high on everyone’s agenda. 

And this product does seem to be making a real contribution to that end. In February 2015 University Hospital Southampton announced that use of MicroGuideTM “has supported a sustained reduction in prescribing of high-risk broad-spectrum antibiotics from 40% to 28%.”

In terms of financials the business has been self-funding from the start and profitable every year it has operated. 

Northall explains: “We are considering raising outside investment to capitalise on our market leading position in the UK and accelerate plans to market MicroGuideTM proactively into selected overseas territories.

“We have an open mind on how new capital is introduced in to the business but would prefer to work with investors that can also add value and use their experience and contacts to help us in our overseas ambitions. We are therefore at the early stages of testing the market but if the right deal came along we can move quickly.”

Recent Technology

All recent tech innovations (3 years) based upon creating our own unique IP for content management that publishes directly to Apps, empowering non-technical specialists to deliver critical content at point of care. All solutions designed from the ground up to be secure, scalable, disruptive and cloud based.

Products

  • MicroGuide
  • MultiGuide
  • Materinty App
  • Friends & Family App
  • IVF App

Investors

Business has been self -funded since inception other than £ 25,000 from existing shareholder.

Contact details

Postal address: West One, 114 Wellington St, Leeds LS1 1BA

Tel: 0113 388 4895

Email: mike@horizonsp.co.uk

Website: horizonsp.co.uk or microguide.eu

Praseeda Nair

Praseeda Nair

Praseeda was Editor for GrowthBusiness.co.uk from 2016 to 2018.

Related Topics

HealthTech