Silvia Health at the GM Innovation Expo

A busy stand, a funding panel, and a hall full of people who wanted to talk about menopause care.

Silvia Health exhibited at the GM Innovation Expo at Manchester Central on Wednesday 21 October, alongside innovators, founders and investors from across Greater Manchester and beyond. The day brought together multiple industries, with panels and workshops for everyone building, learning and connecting across the region.

A stand that didn't stop

Founder and CEO Amy Wild ran the stand with Joanna Dennison, and from opening to close there was a steady stream of visitors. Old friends, new faces, and plenty of people who had never heard of Silvia before and wanted to know more.

What stood out most was who was stopping by. A big number of men, young and old, came over to ask questions, learn and offer their support. Menopause care has long been filed away as a "women's issue". Seeing that change in a room full of innovators was the highlight of the day.

“The most rewarding part of the day for me was the huge support from men, young and old, wanting to find out more, to learn, to support.”

Our branded fans got a mention of their own too. Ilona Alcock, co-founder of Elevate GM, singled them out afterwards as event merchandise that's actually useful to the people it's for, bold, and easy to carry around. We'll take that.

Funding the Future

Amy also joined the Funding the Future panel, hosted by Charlotte Ashton, alongside Ian S Dixon, Rupert Lewis, Dr Devan Moodley and Edward Thompson.

Asked whether it had been easy to win grant funding, Amy's answer came in two parts. Knowing who to talk to was the easy bit. As a self-confessed Manchester dinosaur, she knew exactly where to start. And the support Silvia has had from the Growth Company has been fantastic, including grant funding from the Business Growth Hub Innovation Team. It's the kind of support we'd recommend to any founder in the region, and Greater Manchester is lucky to have it.

Her concern was for the founders and businesses who aren't as plugged into the ecosystem. Ahead of the panel, we did a quick sweep of what's out there. In the week of the expo, 26 Innovate UK competitions were open, 21 of them offering grants. One independent tracker listed 118 open UK and European funding calls. Looking at Greater Manchester alone, one directory listed 11 locally restricted schemes, most of them support programmes, loans or investment rather than grants. We found two local cash-funding opportunities accepting applications that week, both with very specific eligibility.

The support is out there, and plenty of it is excellent. But it's spread across different organisations, platforms and eligibility rules. If you're a first-time founder without a network, how are you supposed to know where to begin?

So her suggestion was simple. Greater Manchester should build a single digital and tech front door, one place that points innovators to the right support. And it shouldn't only be for start-ups. Some of the region's innovators are businesses that have been trading for decades. We're a region full of great tech companies, so let's build one.

Getting to the right place was easy. Getting funded wasn't, and nor should it be. It's public money. Your business case should be strong. Silvia co-funded, and we're held to KPIs, and rightly so.

If you missed us on the stand

Silvia Health is a structured triage support platform for menopause care, built around NICE NG23 guidance. The practice or clinic sets the triage rules. Before the appointment, the patient completes a structured pre-assessment covering more than 70 clinical considerations across 18 domains, and Silvia organises it into a clinician-facing summary. Patients are then invited back for structured check-ins at 3, 6 or 12 months, at an interval the practice sets, so every follow-up builds on the last and nobody starts from scratch.

Every decision stays with the clinician.

Thank you

A big thank you to GM Business Growth Hub and the Elevate GM team, Ilona Alcock and Katie Robson, for pulling together such a valuable day. No small feat, and one we appreciate.