Health technology start-up wins €500k funding

Trade

Team work: Sensormind CEO Siobhan King-Hughes with co-founder Cian Hughes

Sensormind, a Dublin-based health technology start-up, has secured initial seed funding of €500k from two private investors and Enterprise Ireland. The company will use the investment for product development and to launch the system in Britain next year..

Sensormind has developed a number of health technology products to support independent living, including an automated remote monitoring and alert system to help the elderly and vulnerable remain in their own homes and a system for helping care organisations to manage home visits.

Sensormind systems are wireless, easy to implement and connect to a secure internet-based monitoring system.

Sensormind CEO Siobhan King-Hughes notes: “Our goal is to deliver innovative systems that enable older and vulnerable people to maintain their independence”.

She says there is growing interest in this area, known as assisted-living technology, because of the massive projected growth in population aging combined with rising public healthcare costs. There are over 728 million people of pensionable age in Europe, with the number of people over 65 projected to rise by 40% by 2025.

New technologies make it possible for the elderly and vulnerable to remain independent while having access to help if they need it. Most existing solutions provide basic monitoring capabilities combined with ‘panic button’ alarms, but the focus is now turning to ‘intelligent’ systems that can model patterns of behaviour over time.

King-Hughes founded Sensormind with her husband Cian Hughes in 2009 and entered the DIT Hothouse Venture Programme. The company is now based in DCU’s Invent business innovation centre. Prior to founding Sensormind King-Hughes was head of international products at AOL, and she previously held senior management roles at Oracle, IBM and Adobe. She began her career as a developer with Microsoft in Dublin.

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