Barnaby Perks

Chief Business Officer

Barnaby is an experienced entrepreneur with a strong track record of leading and growing digital health businesses.  He focuses on building high-performing teams around an effective and inclusive business culture.  He has specific expertise in digital mental health and assistive technology.

Barnaby started his working life in biomedical engineering research at the University of Dundee before moving into the commercial sector in the mid-90s, taking two businesses to exit – Cambridge Adaptive Communication (voice synthesizers for people with disabilities, headline client Professor Stephen Hawking) and GEWA UK (assistive environmental controls for people with disabilities). 

He then spent several years in a variety of global roles with GE Energy, focusing on geospatial asset management software for utilities, telecom and oil and gas. He re-entered the start-up scene in 2010 as Founding CEO of Cambridge-based Ieso Digital Health, raising more than $30m and building the company from clinical trial into the UK’s leading provider of live online cognitive behavioural therapy with significant health provider contracts in the UK and US. 

In 2018 Barnaby joined Oxford University spin out Oxford VR as Founding CEO to lead the company’s development of virtual reality mental health treatments, raising $20m and building a customer footprint across Europe, Asia and the US. Since mid-2020 Barnaby has focused on his consulting business, Tentsmuir, providing CEO mentorship and NED services to digital health businesses such as university spinouts Psyomics (Cambridge) and Alcuris (Loughborough) as well as consulting support for large corporates such as United Health Group, where he is a member of Optum Labs’ Digital Therapeutics Advisory Board.

Now he brings his massive business experience to VXVY where he is a resource for the company and the members of our network who benefit from his counsel and advice on investment, organizational management and go-to-market strategy.

Barnaby lives outside of London, so he gives a toe-hold in Europe.  It also means that he calls chips “crisps” and his version of football involves one of the round black and white balls.  Like his colleagues across the pond, he thinks Ted Lasso is funny, but for different reasons.  He was an avid rugby player for most of his life and he has the scars to prove it, he’s history buff, and knows more than a thing or two about whiskey distilling (but he’s a Brit so he spells it WHISKY).