Nelson Advisors specialise in mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and investments for MedTech and HealthTech companies in the UK, Europe and USA
- Lloyd Price
- 6 minutes ago
- 9 min read
Executive Summary
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Nelson Advisors LLP, a specialised mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory firm with an exclusive focus on the MedTech and healthcare technology (HealthTech) sectors. The firm operates across the UK, Europe and North America, positioning itself as a strategic partner for both innovative HealthTech companies and sophisticated investors.
A key finding of this report is the firm's unique value proposition, which is centred on the dual expertise of its founding partners as both successful HealthTech entrepreneurs and seasoned corporate finance professionals.
This "Founders for Founders" model offers an unparalleled depth of firsthand industry experience. The firm's advisory approach is further defined by its holistic "Build, Buy, Partner, Sell" framework, which guides clients beyond simple transaction execution toward comprehensive corporate strategies for value maximisation.
Nelson Advisors LLP also distinguishes itself as a thought leader, regularly publishing forward-looking market analysis on key trends and valuation dynamics, particularly concerning the impact of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence.
Nelson Advisors LLP: Core Profile and Strategic Mandate
Mission and Exclusive Focus
Nelson Advisors LLP is one of Europe's leading M&A advisory firms, distinguished by its exclusive dedication to the healthcare technology sector. The firm's mission is to empower innovative MedTech and HealthTech companies and strategic investors, providing them with the necessary guidance to navigate the complexities of M&A and achieve their growth ambitions.
This concentrated focus is a deliberate strategic choice that provides a significant competitive advantage over generalist M&A firms. By committing solely to this rapidly evolving sector, the firm can cultivate unparalleled industry knowledge, establish robust relationships, and develop a nuanced understanding of the sector-specific regulatory frameworks, technological advancements, and market dynamics that are crucial for successful MedTech and HealthTech transactions.
"Build, Buy, Partner, Sell" Framework
Nelson Advisors LLP employs a unique "Build, Buy, Partner, Sell" framework, which serves as the philosophical foundation for its advisory model. This approach represents a departure from the traditional transactional brokerage model. It is not simply a marketing slogan but a strategic tool for value maximisation. Rather than viewing M&A as a one-size-fits-all solution, this framework allows the firm to conduct a comprehensive assessment of a client's position and recommend the optimal path to maximize shareholder value and investment returns.
This includes advising on organic growth ("Build"), strategic acquisitions ("Buy"), channel partnerships and strategic alliances ("Partner"), and exit strategies ("Sell"). This strategic guidance, which is deeply informed by the founders' own entrepreneurial experiences, positions the firm not merely as a transaction facilitator but as a long-term strategic partner dedicated to a client's sustainable success.
Comprehensive Service Offerings
The firm provides a comprehensive suite of M&A services tailored to the MedTech and HealthTech sectors. These offerings include:
Buy-side and Sell-side Advisory: Facilitating the acquisition and divestiture of companies.
Corporate Divestitures: Assisting companies in selling off non-core divisions.
Roll-up Strategies: Advising on the strategic consolidation of fragmented industry segments.
Tech Asset Sales: Structuring and executing the sale of specific technological assets.
Strategic Advisory Services: Providing guidance on Go-To-Market strategies and international expansion to prepare companies for future transactions and growth.
Leadership and Foundational Expertise
The Power of Dual Expertise: Entrepreneurs as Advisors
The core value proposition of Nelson Advisors LLP is rooted in the backgrounds of its founding partners, Lloyd Price and Paul Hemings. Unlike many M&A advisory firms led by professionals with traditional investment banking backgrounds, Nelson Advisors' model is fundamentally different.
Both founders have personally "built, scaled, and exited" their own HealthTech businesses, a rare and compelling attribute for a transactional advisory firm. This firsthand, "in the trenches" experience provides an invaluable layer of insight, empathy, and credibility that a generalist advisor cannot replicate. They have a lived understanding of the complexities and challenges of the entrepreneurial journey, from fundraising and market pivots to securing a successful exit.
This shared experience fosters a deeper level of trust with clients and allows the firm to provide holistic advice that accounts for operational, cultural, and strategic considerations beyond pure financial metrics. This model, often described as "Founders for Founders," serves as a powerful competitive advantage in the market.
Founding Partner Profiles
Lloyd Price: As a Partner and Co-Founder, Lloyd Price brings over 12 years of successful HealthTech entrepreneurial experience, including the successful exit of Zesty in 2020 to Induction Healthcare Group PLC. His industry recognition is evidenced by his roles as a judge for the Digital Health Pitchfest and HealthInvestor Awards. He has also served as a panellist and speaker at prominent events and holds non-executive director roles for various UK Digital Health and HealthTech companies. His influence extends to industry policy, having been a founding member of the Digital Healthcare Council.
Paul Hemings: Paul Hemings is also a Partner and Co-Founder, leveraging more than a decade of global M&A and capital-raising expertise. His corporate finance track record includes advising on over $50 Billion in M&A deals and over $40 billion in equity/financing transactions. Like Mr. Price, he has an entrepreneurial background, having founded and exited two early-stage companies, most recently in metabolic HealthTech. He remains an active Board Advisor to several early-stage tech companies, providing a current perspective on the challenges facing founders.
Sectoral and Geographic Specialisation
The "Why" of Exclusive Specialisation
Nelson Advisors' exclusive focus on the MedTech and HealthTech sectors is a deliberate strategic choice that provides a profound advantage over generalist firms. The HealthTech landscape is not a single market but a complex and fragmented ecosystem with rapidly evolving sub-sectors, diverse regulatory requirements, and unique market dynamics.
A generalist firm would lack the necessary nuanced understanding of these factors to properly value a company, identify the most strategic buyers, or navigate the specific due diligence challenges.
By concentrating exclusively on HealthTech, Nelson Advisors cultivates unparalleled industry knowledge, builds a robust network of sector-specific buyers, and remains at the forefront of technological and regulatory changes. This specialisation is the key to their ability to deliver superior outcomes for clients.
Deep Dive into HealthTech Sub-sectors
The firm's expertise extends across a range of defined MedTech and HealthTech sub-sectors. They provide M&A advisory services for companies in the following areas:
Nelson Advisors LLP: Specialisations by Sub-sector
Sub-sector Name | Definition | Example Technologies / Applications |
Digital Health | Digital technologies used for healthcare and wellness to improve patient engagement and health outcomes. | Mobile apps, telehealth platforms, wearable devices, health information tools. |
HealthTech | Technological innovations that enhance patient outcomes and healthcare delivery. | Advanced medical devices, AI, robotics, bioprinting, nanotechnology. |
Health IT | Technology for managing, storing, and sharing health information. | Electronic health records (EHR), health information exchanges (HIE), clinical decision support tools. |
Consumer Health | Digital tools that enable individuals to proactively manage their own health and wellness. | Mobile health apps, smartwatches, fitness trackers, AI-driven wellness solutions. |
Healthcare Cybersecurity | Ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of healthcare information and systems. | Protecting medical devices and connected systems from unauthorised access or disruption. |
Healthcare AI | The application of Artificial Intelligence to improve medical diagnosis, treatment, and operational efficiency. | Predictive analytics, imaging AI, natural language processing. |
The founding partners have also specifically built and exited HealthTech businesses in Patient Engagement, Medical Device Cybersecurity, Metabolic Health and Consumer Healthcare, demonstrating a hands-on understanding of these specific markets.
The Global Operational Footprint
While the firm maintains a single office location in London, UK, its operational reach is global, covering the UK, Europe, and North America. This lean structure allows for agility and a focus on high-value, high-touch services for complex cross-border transactions.
The founders' extensive corporate finance experience across multiple continents, including the US, UK and Europe, has cultivated a global network of buyers and investors, enabling them to facilitate deals and identify the most suitable global strategic or financial buyers for their clients.
Track Record
Collective and Individual Experience
The firm's transactional history is primarily represented by the extensive collective and individual experience of its founding partners. Paul Hemings' professional background includes advising on over $50 billion in M&A transactions and over $40 billion in equity/financing transactions.
This experience spans a wide range of industries and geographic locations, including the US, UK, Europe, and Asia, providing a strong foundation for their specialized HealthTech focus.
Founder Exits and Entrepreneurial Track Record
A key differentiator is the founders' personal entrepreneurial track record. The partners have built, scaled, and successfully exited four HealthTech businesses, securing exits to North American, European and FTSE-listed companies.
A specific example is the 2020 exit of Zesty, a company founded by Lloyd Price, to Induction Healthcare Group PLC. This direct experience of the exit process provides a compelling form of credibility that goes beyond a standard list of transactions.
Market Insights and Thought Leadership
A Proactive, Forward-Looking Perspective
Nelson Advisors LLP positions itself as a thought leader in the MedTech and HealthTech M&A space, going beyond the role of a simple transaction facilitator.
The firm actively analyses and disseminates market intelligence through published industry reports and a regular LinkedIn newsletter. This proactive approach demonstrates a commitment to staying ahead of industry trends and providing clients with strategic, forward-looking guidance that accounts for dynamic market conditions. The firm was featured in Deloitte's Q1 2025 M&A update, highlighting its recognition within the industry.
Key Market Trends and Analysis (2025)
The firm's reports on the 2025 HealthTech market identify several key macro trends shaping the M&A landscape.
Economic Recovery and Capital Availability: The market is experiencing a "significant resurgence" in mid-2025. This resurgence is attributed to improving macroeconomic conditions, anticipated falling interest rates, and a "substantial pool of pharmaceutical cash reserves". The renewed liquidity is attracting private equity and strategic buyers back into the sector with renewed vigour.
AI Integration and Innovation: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is identified as a "mega trend" that is fundamentally transforming healthcare. The firm highlights the rapid maturation of technologies such as Ambient Voice Technology (AVT), which leverages machine learning to automate clinical documentation and provide real-time decision support. This technological evolution is a major driver of deal flow and valuation.
The Nuance of Valuation: A Premium for Innovation
The market data presented by Nelson Advisors reveals a nuanced story of a recovering but selective market. There is a divergence between an increasing deal volume and a declining deal count, which indicates a strategic shift towards larger, more significant transactions.
This phenomenon reflects a "flight to quality," where buyers are willing to pay a premium for companies with demonstrable innovation and proven solutions. The data below illustrates how strategic alignment with these mega trends translates to tangible valuation premiums.
HealthTech M&A Valuation Multiples (Mid-2025)
HealthTech Sub-sector/Characteristic | Estimated Revenue Multiple |
Companies with Proven AI Solutions | 6−8x |
Companies Aligned with Value-Based Care | 5.5−7x |
Sector Average | 4.5−5x |
The data proves that the market is not recovering uniformly. A confluence of a thawing market and a persistent strategic imperative for digital transformation is creating an environment where buyers are placing a significant value on companies that address the most critical pain points in healthcare delivery.
This is a critical point for any potential client, as it underscores that their ability to achieve a high-value exit is directly tied to their alignment with these strategic trends, something on which Nelson Advisors is uniquely positioned to advise.
Holistic Value Proposition: Global MedTech and HealthTech M&A landscape
The analysis of Nelson Advisors LLP confirms its position as a highly specialised and distinctive advisory firm within the global MedTech and HealthTech M&A landscape. The firm's competitive advantage is derived from a synergistic blend of core components: an exclusive focus on the dynamic MedTech and HealthTech sectors, a unique founder-led model based on dual entrepreneurial and financial expertise, and a global operational network fuelled by deep industry relationships.
Unlike generalist firms, Nelson Advisors offers a profound depth of knowledge and a high-touch, strategic advisory approach embodied in its "Build, Buy, Partner, Sell" framework. The founders’ personal track record of building and exiting companies provides a rare and compelling form of credibility that resonates with entrepreneurs and investors alike.
Furthermore, the firm's role as a proactive thought leader, regularly publishing data-driven market analysis, provides a strategic edge by helping clients understand the key trends and valuation dynamics shaping their potential exit or acquisition.
In summation, Nelson Advisors LLP is not merely a transaction facilitator but a strategic partner that offers a nuanced and informed approach to value creation in the highly specialised and rapidly evolving MedTech and healthcare technology markets.
Nelson Advisors > MedTech and Healthcare Technology M&A
Nelson Advisors specialise in mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and investments for MedTech, Digital Health, HealthTech, Health IT, Consumer HealthTech, Healthcare Cybersecurity, Healthcare AI companies based in the UK, Europe and North America. www.nelsonadvisors.co.uk
Nelson Advisors regularly publish MedTech and Healthcare Technology thought leadership articles covering market insights, trends, analysis & predictions @ https://www.healthcare.digital
We share our views with MedTech and Healthcare Technology insights, analysis and predictions in our LinkedIn Newsletter every week, subscribe today! https://lnkd.in/e5hTp_xb
Founders for Founders > We pride ourselves on our DNA as ‘HealthTech entrepreneurs advising HealthTech and MedTech entrepreneurs.’ Nelson Advisors partner with entrepreneurs, chair persons, boards and investors to maximise shareholder value and investment returns. www.nelsonadvisors.co.uk
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Nelson Advisors LLP
Hale House, 76-78 Portland Place, Marylebone, London, W1B 1NT
Contact Us
Meet Us at MedTech and HealthTech industry events
Digital Health Rewired > 18-19th March 2025 > Birmingham, UK
NHS ConfedExpo > 11-12th June 2025 > Manchester, UK
HLTH Europe > 16-19th June 2025, Amsterdam, Netherlands
HIMSS AI in Healthcare > 10-11th July 2025, New York, USA
World Health Summit 2025 > October 12-14th 2025, Berlin, Germany
HLTH USA 2025 > October 18th-22nd 2025, Las Vegas, USA
MEDICA 2025 > November 11-14th 2025, Düsseldorf, Germany
