Cera, a revolutionary health-tech start-up, launched on Sunday its on-demand social care platform after completing the largest-ever seed round in Europe’s healthcare history.
Former and current heads of leading tech giants, Prague-based venture capital fund Credo Ventures, international banks, the World Health Organisation, and award-winning food delivery service JustEat, have pumped £1.3 million into the disruptive business, which aims to solve the country’s growing need for quick, reliable, and transparent social care.
“Cera is a textbook example of a company we at Credo strive to back: experienced Czech CEO and a Czech-based technical team combining forces with UK’s leading healthcare and business experts to disrupt a very large industry, which operates in the same inefficient ways for decades,” said Andrej Kiska, a Slovak partner at Prague’s Credo Ventures.
The health-tech venture – which is the only service in the UK to guarantee a carer to a patient’s door or hospital bed within four hours – uses state-of-the-art technology to match each carer with the right person, at the right time, at the right place. Either the patient or family member can sign up online via Cera’s interactive website, to quickly book emergency or long-term care, as well as manage bookings and review care records.
Co-founded by 28-year-old doctor Ben Maruthappu, who is ranked amongst the 100 most influential leaders in health tech, globally, and Marek Sacha, a 29-year-old former CEO of grocery delivery startup Rohlik.cz, Cera has been championed by industry pundits for “greatly improv[ing] care provision to patients”.
“The current care system is broken. The market is served by archaic intermediary agencies, with inefficient operations, underpaid staff and poor quality care. Cera is here to challenge this. Through technology and more streamlined logistics, we can transform the service patients receive, use artificial intelligence to advise them on their conditions, while valuing carers and the great work they do,” said Marek Sacha, the co-founder and CEO of Cera.
The online platform, which is easily accessible on all smart devices, also allows family members to receive updates and send messages to the carer on the go, to ensure complete peace of mind. Cera has been active in beta mode since March 2016, experiencing double digit week-on-week revenue growth since going live, and already has hundreds of carers on its roster. Cera is recognised by the Living Wage Foundation, and provides all carers with up to £5 million insurance cover.
Photo: Facebook Cera
