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Leva

Online clinic for people living with chronic pain

1-20 employees
  • Healthcare
  • B2C
  • Personal health
  • Mental health
  • Wellbeing
Remote, UK

Company mission

To provide people living with pain with access to outstanding online care and the latest in evidence-based medicine. Their vision is to have a world without unnecessary pain.

60% female employees

Otta's take

Theo Margolius headshot

Theo Margolius

COO of Otta

The Medical cannabis market is growing in the UK since it was legalised in 2018. Unfortunately, in many cases the quality of the product hasn't been great. There's also a lot of work to do on helping people become more aware of the legalisation and benefits of medical cannabis when it is properly administered.

1 in 5 people in the UK suffer from chronic pain. Unfortunately, it can take the NHS up to 2 years to even see some of these patients, and that is on average for a cost of 60K a year.

That's why Leva is set up as an end to end chronic pain clinic. They specialise in helping people with a holistic chronic pain plan, and support patients throughout their journey. In doing so, they don't simply send people off with medical cannabis. Leva ensures the products are of the highest quality vs the market standard (illegal and regulated).

Benefits

  • Pension with salary exchange which is tax efficient
  • Life Insurance - one we hope to never pay out on but peace of mind for you that it's there

Funding (1 round)

Oct 2022

$3.8m

SEED

$3.8m

Total funding

Founders

Eric Bystrom

(Co-founder and CEO)

Recovering banker inspired by a close family member's experience living with chronic pain.

People progressing

A trained therapist, Lucy started life at Leva as a Clinic Operations Associate and showed such organisation, problem-fixing at scale and natural empathy for our patients that we moved her to Product.

With her background in clinical practice and over two years in Leva's Operations team, Sarah has progressed from Associate, to Operations Manager, to Head of Operations.

Diversity & Inclusion at Leva

Laura Wathen headshot

Laura Wathen (CFO + currently leading all things culture/people)

  • We're still a small business and know our D&I efforts are no where near where we want ourselves to be but we're proud of our already diverse team. We pride ourselves in having racial and gender diversity, as well as people with different personalities and career experience join together.
  • We hold "Pulses" on a regular basis to get a sensor check of how our team is feeling and what we can do better
  • We're actively looking into our parental leave policies in order to support our Leva team with family plans

Endorsements

All

Challenging work (1)

Opportunities to learn (1)

Meaningful work (1)

Nice people (1)

Hard working team (1)

Inspiring mission (1)

Leva is making a very real difference to people's lives. The proudest moment I've had at Leva has been hearing from a patient who said because of the medication and care we give her she was able to take a train for the first time *in her life*. I'm learning all the time about how care is provided in this country, how we scale truly great care and am working on my first native app.

Product

Opportunities to learn

Nov 2022

As part of the product and tech team, I am responsible for building the tools that will help our Operations team scale truly brilliant care to people who are in desperate need of support. We're also at the forefront of the UK's first native app for managing medical cannabis prescriptions, something that is critical for our patients' wellbeing.

Product

Meaningful work

Nov 2022

We're a small team but something that is clear is that trust and kindness is part of Leva's DNA. People also just "muck in" to fix problems for our patients as we work out ways to scale better.

Product

Nice people

Nov 2022

I've been so impressed by the dedication that people show at Leva - there is a real sense of everyone clubbing together to deliver the best outcome for our patients.

Finance, Legal & Compliance

Hard working team

Nov 2022

There is nothing more inspiring than reading some of the patient stories of some of the people whose lives we have helped to change - patients who were previously house-bound are now active participants in their local communities. I am so proud to be part of that.

Finance, Legal & Compliance

Inspiring mission

Nov 2022

We are in the early days of building the clinic and so there are some fascinating problems to solve, which given where we are if solved will deliver a meaningful step change in the way we deliver our services. If those are the types of challenges that get you excited, this is the place for you!

Finance, Legal & Compliance

Challenging work

Nov 2022

Leva 1