NEX Raises €1M to Stop Deadly Superbugs Spreading Inside Hospitals

 OXFORD, 19 May 2026: NEX Health Intelligence just announced the raise of a €1M Pre-Seed round, led by Brighteye Ventures, with participation from Adeline Arts & Science, AFI Ventures (Ventech’s impact fund), Momentous Ventures, the Conception X Angel Syndicate, and industry Angels.

NEX is building an always-on infection intelligence platform that uses artificial intelligence to help hospitals detect, predict, and prevent highly resistant infections before they spread.

One in ten patients admitted to hospital acquire a healthcare-associated infection during their stay [3]. The impact is measured in extended hospital stays, avoidable deaths, operational disruption, and billions in annual healthcare costs [4,5]  Early research has shown that more targeted infection control interventions can reduce hospital infections by up to 46% and deliver millions in cost savings - even against some of the most dangerous antibiotic-resistant pathogens [6].

Dr. Ashleigh Myall, Founder & CEO of NEX, started the company during his PhD in Mathematics at Imperial College London after working on the NHS response to COVID-19 and seeing first-hand how quickly infections spread inside hospitals.

Dr Myall said: “While supporting the NHS COVID-19 response, I realised the real challenge wasn’t just the number of admissions — it was how quickly infections spread between vulnerable patients already inside hospitals. During my PhD at Imperial, I began building AI systems to predict where infections would spread next. That became the foundation for NEX.”

Ash met his Co-Founder Dr. Chang Ho Yoon, Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer, whilst they were both at the Alan Turing Institute and saw eye-to-eye on the potential to use AI to improve how infections are detected and prevented.

Dr Ho Yoon said: “Infections acquired in hospitals increasingly threaten the care that we want to provide our patients. If we can predict them, we have a chance to nip them in the bud”.

Ben Wirz, Founding Partner and Isabella Vahdati, Principal, at Brighteye Ventures who led the round, said: “AI has the potential to enable intelligent decision support in high-stakes environments, enabling healthcare teams to act faster and allocate resources smarter, fundamentally transforming how clinical teams work.”

Sarah Laznowski, AFI Ventures (by Ventech) also mentioned: “The shift from reactive to preventive care was a key point for us: hospitals can no longer afford to detect outbreaks three days later either in terms of human lives or the workload placed on their medical staff.“

Following NEX’s latest product release in December, infection control compliance increased by approximately 114% - representing a step-change in how infections are tracked and contained.

With a total of £1.2M in funding raised to date, NEX is already working across multiple international sites, having provided infection safety to more than 40,000 patient admissions.

The fresh funding will be used to scale deployments across UK and international hospitals, complete UK regulatory and clinical safety work, and generate real-world clinical and economic evidence from live sites.

Commenting on the opportunity, Professor Alison Holmes OBE, Director of the Fleming Initiative at Imperial College London, said: “As antimicrobial resistance continues to rise, strengthening how we detect and prevent infections within healthcare is critical.”

In the UK, the company is working with leading NHS organisations, with evaluation work underway across two London NHS Trusts and a new deployment in the North West of England. Internationally, the platform is deployed at a major military hospital in Southeast Asia and is expanding through regional projects, including at one of Malaysia’s largest public hospitals.

The underlying research was developed at Imperial College London’s Departments of Mathematics and Infectious Diseases, then validated in The Lancet [7] demonstrating the ability to predict transmissible infections days in advance across UK and European hospitals.

Jay, investment manager at Adeline, who invested in the round, followed to say: ”"Healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) are paralyzing health systems and driving immense economic burdens, with a single hospital outbreak costing upwards of £1 million. Current efforts fall short because existing technologies are reactionary, offering no ability to prevent the spread. This is a global crisis—affecting up to 15% of hospitalised patients in developing nations and running rampant across Europe. Solving a global problem requires a globally scalable, proactive solution. We are incredibly proud to partner with NEX Health Intelligence to make this a reality.”

The goal: to deploy infection intelligence across hospitals to protect patients.

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About NEX Health Intelligence

NEX Health Intelligence is a London-based company building AI systems to help hospitals prevent infections. Founded based on research at Imperial College London, NEX gives clinical teams a real-time view of infection risk - predicting where infections are likely to spread so they can act earlier. Learn more: https://www.nex-intelligence.org/ 

About Brighteye

Brighteye invest early in European technology companies expanding the HumanOS: systems that help people learn, work, and adapt continuously. We work closely with you to turn insight into product, and momentum into real growth. We’ll connect you with operators, customers, and follow-on investors who can accelerate your journey. Learn more: https://www.brighteyevc.com/ 

About AFI Ventures
AFI Ventures, the early-stage impact arm of Ventech, is a seed and pre-seed fund that supports impact startups addressing environmental and social issues. Managed by Ventech, AFI Ventures is committed to backing the emergence and scaling of entrepreneurs at the intersection of “for profit” and “for good” in France and in largely in Europe, to develop fairer and more sustainable solutions for all sectors of the economy. Learn more: AFI Ventures

About Adeline Arts and Science

Adeline Arts and Science is a family office based in London, funding early-stage tech startups, creative projects and scientific research. We look for founders driven by personal imperative, and systemic leverage that give them the right to win. Learn more: https://www.adeline.co.uk

References 

³ World Health Organization (WHO), 2024. Key facts and figures – World Hand Hygiene Day. [online] Available at: https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-hand-hygiene-day/key-facts-and-figures  [Accessed 21 July 2025]

⁴ Manoukian, S., Stewart, S., Graves, N., Mason, H., Robertson, C., Kennedy, S., Pan, J., Kavanagh, K., Haahr, L., Adil, M. and Dancer, S.J., 2021. Bed-days and costs associated with the inpatient burden of healthcare-associated infection in the UK. Journal of Hospital Infection, 114, pp.43-50. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-033367 

⁵ Umscheid, C.A., Mitchell, M.D., Doshi, J.A., Agarwal, R., Williams, K. and Brennan, P.J., 2011. Estimating the proportion of healthcare-associated infections that are reasonably preventable and the related mortality and costs. In: Healthcare-associated Infection (HAI) Prevention. [online] National Center for Biotechnology Information (US). Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK144030/  [Accessed 21 July 2025].

⁶ Allel, K., Garcia, P., Peters, A., Munita, J., Undurraga, E.A. and Yakob, L., 2025. Cost-effectiveness of screening, decolonisation and isolation strategies for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections in hospitals: a sex-stratified mathematical modelling study. The Lancet Regional Health–Americas, 43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2025.101019 

⁷ Myall, A., Price, J.R., Peach, R.L., Abbas, M., Mookerjee, S., Zhu, N., Ahmad, I., Ming, D., Ramzan, F., Teixeira, D. and Graf, C., 2022. Prediction of hospital-onset COVID-19 infections using dynamic networks of patient contact: an international retrospective cohort study. The Lancet Digital Health, 4(8), pp.e573-e583. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2589-7500(22)00093-0