KPN Ventures has invested in Sensara, a producer of intelligent senior lifestyle monitoring for preventive care and personalized alarm services, based on movement sensors and self-learning algorithms. This investment is in line with KPN Ventures’ strategy to invest in e-health and connected home services and KPN’s conviction that innovative ICT solutions can contribute significantly to improving healthcare services and increasing people’s autonomy even in the face of illness or old age.
The Sensara solution enables senior care institutions and home care organizations to improve the quality of care by preventing crisis situations with early detection of changes in lifestyle. The solution enables elderly people to live in their home independently for a longer time, a growing need as societies age and the people in those societies grow increasingly older.
The product consists of data from a set of sensors (no camera’s), a self-learning algorithm that recognizes individual behaviour patterns and detects important deviations, and an application that sends notifications to alert caretakers or family members. Sensara’s service enables care providers to determine more quickly and more precisely whether and what type of problems the elderly person is experiencing, after which preventive measures can be taken. Sensara combines preventive healthcare with a personalised passive alarm service.
Reinout Engelberts, CEO of Sensara: “There is a big demand from elderly-care institutions, local governments and insurance companies for preventive healthcare and smart alarm services that can support the professional caretakers and keep family informed as well. The investment by KPN Ventures and Van Herk Ventures will allow us to scale up sales, continue product development and broaden our customer service and also take the first steps in our international expansion.”
Herman Kienhuis, Managing Director of KPN Ventures: “Based on many years of research, Sensara has developed a personalised healthcare alarm service that offers more prevention, more security and peace of mind, at lower cost and in a non-intrusive way.”
The investment by KPN Ventures is part of a financing round into Sensara totalling EUR 3.8 million. Besides KPN Ventures who are leading the investment, other investors in this round include Van Herk Ventures and management. Sensara was founded in 2013 as a spin-off of TNO, a leading Dutch research organisation.