London-based Cera, a digital-first home healthcare provider, has raised $150M in financing — primarily debt — led by BDT & MSD Partners and Schroders Capitals. Key investors include Earlymarket, Guinness Ventures, DigitalHealth, and Robin Klein, a seasoned UK investor known for backing transformative startups and playing a pivotal role in Cera’s growth. This investment values Cera at over $1 billion, achieving unicorn status.
The new capital will fund several initiatives: scaling up its AI-driven platform for predicting health deterioration, enhancing technology capabilities, expanding specialised care services (nursing, physiotherapy, mental health support, and clinical trials), upskilling health workers in AI, and pursuing overseas opportunities—building on its recent German market entry.
Behind Cera’s mission to address healthcare sector’s crisis
Established in 2016 by Dr. Ben Maruthappu, Cera ranks among Europe’s fastest-growing healthcare technology firms, specialising in digital-first home healthcare solutions. The company seeks to tackle the ongoing crisis in the healthcare sector, particularly in home care.
Dr. Maruthappu’s firsthand experience coordinating care for a relative highlighted the obstacles that care providers and seekers face, motivating him to leverage technology to enhance healthcare delivery. He noted: “We’re taking pressure off the NHS and supporting it has more capacity to care for more expanded into other service lines such as nursing services, physiotherapy, learning disabilities, physical disabilities, and providing mental heads in the home.
The company now delivers over 60,000 daily in-person healthcare visits across UK homes, partnering with over 150 local governments and two-thirds of NHS Integrated Care Systems.
How Cera provides a comprehensive healthcare dataset
Unlike Home Instead and Bluebird Care competitors, who use non-proprietary applications, Cera’s proprietary AI-driven platform offers superior accuracy and efficiency through advanced analytics capabilities.
The technology demonstrates remarkable predictive power: it can forecast over 80% of falls a week in advance, predict 83% of hospitalisations seven days ahead, reduce falls by 20%, and cut hospitalisation rates by up to 70%. These predictive analytics enable healthcare specialists to implement early interventions and preventive care.
Cera’s app empowers carers and nurses to collect patient symptoms and health data during home visits. The application detects worsening conditions 30 times faster than traditional methods, enabling immediate interventions and rapid responses to health changes.
The platform seamlessly integrates various aspects of home healthcare, including care planning and scheduling, real-time communication between caregivers, patients, and families, electronic visit verification, medication management, and remote patient monitoring.
Future of the UK healthcare
Cera reports daily savings of £1 million for the UK healthcare system, demonstrating its potential to address systemic inefficiencies while improving care quality. Rob Platek, partner and global head of credit at BDT & MSD, commented: “Cera has achieved strong growth through a demonstrated ability to leverage technology to deliver exceptional care. We believe Cera is well positioned to scale its business further.”
As Cera expands its services and refines its AI-driven platform, it is poised to make an even greater impact on the UK healthcare sector, potentially alleviating NHS pressures and improving patient care quality nationwide.
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