To compliment a new round of venture capital, Zesty has announced new hires including Carl Oliver as UK sales director and head of product Warren Guy.
Zesty has turned to TA Ventures and ABRT Venture Fund to raise new growth capital, following a previous Mangrove Capital Partners-led seed round in early 2013.
Having launched a Beta service in May 2013, Zesty initially served as a booking platform for dental appointments in the UK. However, it is now moving into new healthcare verticals such as physiotherapy, osteopathy and dermatology.
Commenting on the new deal, Zesty co-founder Lloyd Price says, ‘In 2013 we proved one small tech start-up can improve access to both public and private healthcare markets.
‘This latest round of funding enables us to diversify away from dentistry into more lucrative markets. Access to healthcare is a multi-billion pound white space of opportunity in the UK and we remain focused on our vision to make booking your next healthcare appointment as easy as booking a flight, hotel or restaurant online.’
Now operational in six healthcare markets, Zesty says plans are afoot to expand that to 25 by the end of the year.
New hire Oliver has held senior management positions at Just East, which recently floated on the stock market in London, Scoot and Yellow Pages. Guy, Zesty’s head of product, has been part of the teams at HealthEngine, CalorieKing and Popfossa.
Andrew Gershfeld, chief investment officer at ABRT Venture Fund, adds, ‘We are delighted to join our investment partners Mangrove Capital in this latest round of funding for Zesty, we believe online access to healthcare is a huge untapped market in the UK and across Europe.
‘The ABRT team were impressed with the vision and progress the Zesty founders have made and look forward to working with them in 2014 and beyond.’
ABRT was set up by Ratmir Timashev and Andrei Baronoy, who previously set up Aelita Software, and have backed companies including KupiVip and HomeMe. The duo sold their Aelita Software business to Quest Software for $115 million in 2004.
