Children’s cancer charity makes first investment into paediatic platform
Young Lives vs Cancer today announced its first £30,000 Innovation Lab impact investment into Little Journey, a Series A digital health company aiming to improve paediatric care through personalised preparation and support tools.
Launched in June 2025, the Innovation Lab aims to transform Young Lives vs Cancer’s 60+ years of expertise, experience, reach, and data insight into mission capital, using impact-first venture philanthropy and partnerships to close psychosocial gaps in young people’s cancer care, with any returns reinvested for greater future impact.
The Innovation Lab aims to move beyond traditional charitable endeavours like service provision to a pipeline-led investment approach focusing on ventures that can scale inside live NHS pathways and maximise scalable impact for children and young people with cancer.
The Lab seeks to de-risk adoption in under-served areas such as children’s cancer and complex paediatric needs, which are often avoided due to safeguarding, procurement and integration complexity.
Rachel Kirby-Rider, CEO of Young Lives vs Cancer, said: “Through the Young Lives Innovation Lab, we’re offering something rare: access to real-world data, collaboration with frontline practitioners, and direct insight from young people and families who know what truly matters following a cancer diagnosis.
“Little Journeys’ mission closely aligns with our vision to change how young people experience treatment.
“Their child centric approach uses technology to fully understand patients and build a solution that centres around the real needs of a child at the worst point in their life.
The impact-first investment, which follows Little Journey’s recent £6m Series A raise, will be used to co-develop oncology-specific content, test and scale across real-world NHS settings, and strengthen the evidence and adoption case for paediatric oncology.
Beyond Young Lives Vs Cancer’s financial support, Little Journey will now also gain distribution access, psychosocial and safeguarding expertise, leadership in children’s digital privacy, and ecosystem credibility – aiming to accelerate time-to-adoption and reduce execution risk.
The headline return will be measured in improved outcomes for young people, families and services, as well as future financial returns redeployed into other high impact opportunities for children and young people with cancer in an evergreen “mission capital” model.
Dr Chris Evans, CEO and co-founder of Little Journey, said: “Our mission has always been to make every child’s healthcare experience more positive, personalised, and empowering.
“This partnership with Young Lives vs Cancer enables us to deepen that impact by co-creating oncology-specific solutions, strengthening the range of support we offer across therapeutic areas and medical specialities.
“The Innovation Lab shares our belief in always building with families, clinicians, patient advocates to create solutions that meet real needs for real people.”
