Alistair Wilson, a sepsis survivor, is trying to convince the medical establishment that a finger-prick test developed in Leeds could spot the condition before patients reach the brink.
His startup, Septest, announced last September that it had closed a seed round, according to funding aggregator SignalBase, though the company wouldn't confirm the exact figure or valuation. The money came from Oxford Technology, Keiretsu Forum London, and the FundMyPitch investor network. The UK Business Angels Association reported that FundMyPitch contributed £310,000 as part of a £1 million-plus round earlier in the year. Kappika Ventures backed an earlier pre-seed.
The Leeds-based team is developing TRISEP, a rapid blood test designed to help frontline clinicians identify infection and inflammation in around 15 minutes. Wilson founded Septest in late 2022, and the company added CEO Jag Grewal in September 2025, a diagnostics veteran who spent more than 13 years at Omega Diagnostics and Cambridge Nutritional Sciences, where he was chief executive until stepping down in mid-2024. Last September, the startup named Dr. Tito Bacarese-Hamilton as chair. Bacarese-Hamilton has spent more than three decades in in-vitro diagnostics, with experience at companies including Johnson & Johnson and EKF Diagnostics.
The company is aiming for a UK market launch in the second half of next year, though that timeline depends on development milestones, validation studies, and regulatory clearance. Septest has also announced a grant from the National Institute for Health and Care Research's Invention for Innovation Product Development Awards program to support clinical evaluation of TRISEP at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
A Test Built Around Uncertainty
TRISEP doesn't require a dedicated analyzer. The lateral-flow device uses roughly 20 microliters of whole blood from a finger prick and measures multiple biological signals tied to inflammatory, bacterial, viral, and fungal responses. Visual results appear in approximately 15 minutes.
Septest describes the product not as a standalone sepsis diagnostic but as something that might narrow what it calls the "uncertainty gap" early in the patient pathway, before deterioration becomes undeniable. The company said TRISEP has moved through technical feasibility and working-prototype stages and is now focused on assay optimization, analytical validation, manufacturing development, and regulatory preparation.
The startup is conducting a prospective blinded clinical evaluation with Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, focusing on adults with suspected infection and relatively low National Early Warning Score 2 readings. Septest is also exploring pre-hospital applications in partnership with South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust. The company developed its first working prototype with help from Pera International, a UK product-development organization, and won the TBAT Innovation Challenge in October 2023, securing a prize package valued at around £50,000 in services.
The Stakes
Sepsis caused an estimated 49 million cases and 11 million deaths worldwide in 2017, representing roughly one in five global deaths, according to a 2020 study published in The Lancet and cited by the World Health Organization. In the United States, at least 1.7 million adults develop sepsis annually and at least 350,000 die during hospitalization or are discharged to hospice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in August 2023.
But Septest is entering a market where several players have already planted flags. Cytovale received FDA 510(k) clearance for its IntelliSep test in January 2023. Immunexpress gained clearance for SeptiCyte RAPID in November 2021. Both have pursued U.S. hospital deployments over the past few years. The question is whether a Leeds-based startup with between two and 10 employees listed on LinkedIn can carve out space in a field where speed and regulatory credibility are everything.
Wilson's personal connection to the disease may help. "Founded by a sepsis survivor, we understand firsthand the critical need for rapid and accurate infection diagnostics," the company's website states. Whether that lived experience translates into clinical adoption remains to be seen.
