A University of Edinburgh finance graduate who taught himself to code using Chat GPT has sold his AI medical scribe Nora AI for an undisclosed sum, just two years after forming the company.
Nora – an AI-powered tool that converts doctor–patient conversations into structured clinical notes – was acquired by leading South African health tech company Healthbridge as a “strategic AI pillar of the Healthbridge Clinical suite”, the company’s CEO Luis da Silva announced.
Doctors using Nora reported saving up to three hours per day on documentation, freeing up time for patient care as well as improving the quality and consistency of patient records.
Co-founder Robert van Biljon studied for a Masters in Finance at the University of Edinburgh Business School and, whilst there, began working on an ed tech venture using AI to take lecture notes, supported by Edinburgh Innovations, the University’s commercialisation service.
The service later helped him pivot to health tech, following advice from an angel investor.
Healthbridge began trialing the tech in October 2025 and, as it increased users by 23 per cent each month, quickly bought up the company for an undisclosed sum.
Van Biljon said:
I did not expect this! Neither I nor my co-founder James Gordon knew how to code, but we saw the potential of GPT4 and started to build Nora Education, building on the venture I’d started at Edinburgh.
We were trying to raise money for it, back home in South Africa, with about 90 users, when we met an angel investor who suggested doing the same thing for doctors. We thought, saving time for students is one thing, but for doctors it could be really impactful.
I think the investor was impressed by how we had built Nora without coding experience, and that led to Healthbridge inviting us to trial it on their platform. ”
Van Biljon, now based in London, is taking a break before starting work on a new idea. He said:
Being a founder can be very isolating, and being able to speak to the advisors at Edinburgh Innovations for a sense check was like having someone cheering us on.
Building a startup is slog and sacrifice, it swallows time, and there’s a big mental aspect to sticking it out. But it’s so rewarding. Nothing beats the feeling of knowing doctors are using something we built. ”
Lizzie Withington, Director of Venture Creation at Edinburgh Innovations, said:
Edinburgh is proud to be an entrepreneurial university and EI is proud to support our students and staff to translate their ideas into world-changing ventures, partnerships and technologies.
Congratulations to the Nora team and we wish Robert all the best for his next adventure!”
