Healthtech firm focused on medical treatment of sportspeople scores six-figure funding boost

A Glasgow-based firm that aims to transform the way sporting event medicine patient care is delivered is aiming to operate internationally after a major funding injection from a Rangers player-turned top sports medic.

Professor Gordon MacKay and wife Jackie have invested £400,000 in ScribePro, a medical app platform that records medical interactions in real time for clinicians working in team sports. The firm, which currently has five full-time employees and is growing, says that it will on the back of this accelerate its market entry and route to internationalisation while furthering its product development and research, with a predicted revenue of £4.5 million in 2025.

ScribePro was founded in April 2018 and commercially launched at the start of 2021, setting out to improve the welfare and safety of patients by making their medical information instantaneously accessible and transparent to all clinical staff in any location. It says it has already signed up users including medics working with the Scottish FA, FIFA and the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU), as well as national associations across Europe and in the Middle East, for example.

The concept is the brainchild of Jonny Gordon, a consultant in emergency medicine at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and the first team doctor for football’s Scotland National Team, and David Lowe, an academic consultant in emergency medicine and co-director of emergency medicine-focused EmQuire Research. It will soon market its new FirstAid and Event companion apps alongside its flagship Teams system.

From left: Professor Gordon MacKay, ScribePro founders David Lowe and Jonny Gordon, and Jackie MacKay. Picture: contributed.

Chief executive Dr Gordon, who has been working with FIFA at the World Cup in Qatar, said: “The platform improves player welfare and safety with transparent, instantly accessible medical information available to all clinical staff. It is also a tool for minimising risk to clinicians who are open to legal action.”

Professor MacKay, a consultant orthopaedic sports surgeon who has served as the official surgeon for Celtic and Rangers, the SRU, Commonwealth Games and Ryder Cup, having previously played in the Rangers reserve team alongside Ally McCoist and Graeme Souness, switched to medicine after suffering serious ligament damage that brought his playing days to a premature end in 1990. He said: “I have a lot of confidence in Jonny’s clinical ability and when he explained the vision for ScribePro, I was very keen to do whatever I could to support their venture.”