CABHI invests $4.55 million in latest cohort of agetech companies helping older adults
Up to $400,000 CAD per company to develop, test, and/or scale their solution.
TORONTO, April 13, 2023 /CNW/ - The Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI), powered by Baycrest, invested more than $4.55 million in funding to support early-stage innovations aimed at improving the quality of life for older adults, people living with dementia, and their caregivers.
The funding was granted through CABHI's Mentorship, Capital, and Continuation (MC2) Program in partnership with National Bank, which supports early-stage companies in growing and scaling agetech solutions.
"Agetech companies face early-stage funding gaps. MC2 addresses this, in collaboration with its partners, by awarding financial support but by also offering a series of acceleration services to support their growth and sustainability," says James Mayer, Senior Manager, Investments & Venture Services at CABHI. "It's a first-of-its-kind program, now in its 4th cohort, that has directed $8.7 million to companies which have gone on to secure millions more in follow-on funding. To date, more than 50% of all CABHI companies have secured follow-on investment totalling more than $529M."
As a hands-on investor, CABHI's acceleration services include access to an innovation network of 200+ distribution channels and industry organizations, 100+ experts through a coaches community, and financial, legal, and regulatory benefits and discounts from corporate partners. In addition, CABHI offers end-user testing, customer discovery, and subsidies for internship/co-op student placements to MC2 companies.
"As the most active accelerator in Canada focused on older adults, aging, and brain health, CABHI advances the most promising aging and brain health solutions from development through validation to adoption," said Dr. Allison Sekuler, CABHI President and Chief Scientist. "With programs like CABHI's MC2 Capital, CABHI supports homegrown agetech entrepreneurs to commercialize, spread, and scale their solutions to better the lives of older adults, people living with dementia, and their caregivers, across Canada and around the world."
The recently funded MC2 cohort companies are:
RetiSpec (Ontario): Developer of a non-invasive diagnostic tool designed for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease biomarkers in the eye. RetiSpec also scans for signs of other diseases like Parkinson's, Vascular Dementia, and ALS.
Medly Therapeutics (Ontario): Medly provides an AI-powered multiple chronic condition management platform. Medly's vision is to become the leading multiple chronic condition (MCC) management platform, with identified target conditions including Heart Failure, Depression (Mental Health), Diabetes, and Hypertension. The identified target conditions are all known risk factors and comorbidities for dementia and are increasingly common amongst older adult populations.
Denti.Ai (Ontario): Denti.Ai operates an intelligent automation and diagnostics company intended to provide dental image diagnostics. The company's platform leverages AI to analyze dental x-rays and voice dictation for the automated charting of pathologies, past treatments, and other features and help find diseases earlier. Maintaining good oral health is a key component of healthy aging and brain health.
Tenera Care (Nova Scotia): Provider of real-time monitoring and analytics technology intended to enhance the quality of life for seniors, care staff and their families. A wrist band remotely monitors health data, and an app allows loved ones to view the wellness reports for their senior family members.
Neuroservo (Quebec): Manufacturer of an innovative, medical-grade prefrontal EEG device intended to provide real-time brainwave analysis and pathology detection. The company's product is miniaturized, wireless with single-use dry electrodes, and has been designed to be used as an emergency EEG for ICU/ER, as a screening device (post-operative delirium)
mmHg (Alberta): Developer of software solutions designed for helping patients and healthcare practitioners to monitor health and follow evidence-based care. The company provides a virtual care platform that enables remote patient monitoring of blood pressure, heart rate, glucose, weight, pulse oximetry, respiratory rate, and temperature. mmHg supports underserved areas of the health care system by enabling efficient remote care delivery.
VoxNeuro (Ontario): A data-driven neuroscience and health tech company that provides objective data of real-time cognitive function in a clear report. The company's Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) advances cognitive health assessment from the current subjective surveys by comparing patient biomarkers against its normative database to provide objective and biological scores for a range of neurology and psychiatry conditions.
Gotcare (Ontario): The company's platform manages a database of over 30,000 licensed care workers and allows users to submit care requests, select the support worker, converse with them, and predict the budget, thereby enabling case managers and their clients to get a personalized healthcare experience in the home.
Homecare Hub (Ontario): Homecare Hub helps people with caregiving needs such as those with dementia, disability, injury, fall risk, or chronic illness to stay out of large institutional nursing facilities by providing a superior experience in a safe, personalized, affordable, small shared care and co-living environment.
Ora Medical (Quebec): Developer of medical equipment designed to revolutionize physical rehabilitation for people with walking disabilities. Ora Medical has developed an online remote rehabilitation platform connected to physical sensors on walking devices and gait trainers, allowing clinicians to gather real-time data regarding their patients' progress.
FirstHX (Ontario): Developer of a patient-driven cloud-based medical history-taking system designed to help patients communicate their medical stories to the health care team. It features an intelligent, adaptive interview process, plain language, and narrative and point form formats.
Total Life (British Columbia): Developer of a virtual therapy platform designed for seniors. The company's therapists specialize in helping older adults reclaim their joy through online talk therapy, and work across diverse specialties, cultures, and languages, and offer mental health tools and support seniors deserve to live longer, healthier, happier lives
Implant Genius (British Columbia): Implant Genius' technology reduces risks and simplifies surgery reducing prosthetic implant failures by identifying the position of vital structures such as nerves and roots of adjacent teeth. Proper implant planning identifies the position of vital structures such as nerves and roots of adjacent teeth, so implants are placed perfectly without consequences for older adults. Loss of implants and oral health issues affect cognition and quality of life.
CABHI gratefully acknowledges the support of its funders: the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, and the Government of Canada through the Public Health Agency of Canada.
To learn more about CABHI's work, visit www.cabhi.com.
A solution accelerator for the aging and brain health sector, CABHI provides funding and support to innovators for the development, testing, and dissemination of the latest ideas and technologies that address unmet brain health and seniors' care needs. Established in 2015, it is the result of the largest investment in brain health and aging in Canadian history. CABHI is a unique collaboration of healthcare, science, industry, not-for-profit and government partners whose aim is to help improve quality of life for the world's aging population, allowing older adults to age safely in the setting of their choice while maintaining their cognitive, emotional, and physical well-being.
SOURCE Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation
Lisa Hartford, Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation, 647.466.8053 [email protected]
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