This morning contact free health monitoring company EarlySense announced a $39 million funding round. Hospital bed manufacturer Hill-Rom and Wells Fargo & Company led the round with participation from BlueRed Capital, Israel Innovation Fund, Argos Capital and Hotung Capital.
This funding news comes just a month after the announcement that EarlySense’s contact free monitor will now be integrated into Hill-Rom’s Centrella smart hospital bed.
What do they do
EarlySense’s contact free health monitoring system has been employed in a number of ways. The company started out with under-the-mattress sensors designed for hospital use. In 2015 it began to expand into the direct to consumer space.
At last year’s CES it announced Percept, a contact-free fertility monitor that is designed to slip under a user’s mattress. The monitor is able to track a user’s dates of ovulation, fertility window and period by monitoring physiological signs.
Recently the company began moving from just under-the-mattress technology to an integrated system. In November officials announced that it would be integrating its heart rate and respiratory rate sensing technology into Hill-Rom’s Centrella smart hospital bed. The technology has the capability to measure heart rate and respiratory rate more than 100 times per minute.
“Hill-Rom is committed to enhancing patient safety through cutting-edge technologies. Our Centrella bed is transforming inpatient care with integrated advanced sensing and analytics, offering a complete patient safety platform to assist clinicians in providing the highest level of care," John Groetelaars, president and CEO of Hill-Rom, said in a statement announcing the latest funding. “Our decision to change the standard of care by integrating EarlySense into our Centrella platform, and now our move to deepen our exclusive relationship with EarlySense through a significant equity investment, are key steps in that direction.”
What it’s for
The company hinted that this new money will be used to expand AI analytics and grow sales both internationally and domestically.
“These are exciting times for EarlySense. The company has transitioned to a SaaS-like business model, and has since more than tripled its installed base in hospitals and nursing homes within the last year alone. The partnership with Hill-Rom is a natural fit to fuel the company’s vision of ‘an EarlySense sensor in every bed,’” Ittai Harel, managing partner of Pitango Venture Capital and chairman of EarlySense’s Board of Directors, said in a statement. “With the growth financing completed, we expect accelerating sales growth in the U.S. and globally, the adding of new AI-based analytics, and further expanding the company’s patient and health monitoring solutions offering, from hospitals to nursing homes and to the home.”
Market snap shot
This isn’t EarlySense’s first big funding news. In fact, before this announcement the company already landed over $100 million in funding. The last funding was in 2016 when it announced $25 million raise to continue to develop products to be used in the home. Just a year before, the company landed $20 million, with $10 million constituting a strategic investment from Samsung.
