Enterprise Europe Network

Swiss based e-health company seeks partners to commercialise and co-develop their web-based products and services for ambulatory care in Europe.

Country of origin:
Country: 
SWITZERLAND
Opportunity:
External Id: 
BOCH20201221001
Published
22/12/2020
Last update
05/01/2021
Expiration date
06/01/2022

Keywords

Partner keyword: 
Advanced Systems Architecture
Applications for Health
ERP - Electronic Resources Planning
Operation Planning and Scheduler System
Health information management
Applications software
Business and office software
Medical/health software
Therapeutic services
Geriatrics
EXPRESS YOUR INTEREST

Summary

Summary: 
A Swiss e-health company empowers home caregivers with state of the art digital tools and systems. The platform enables to interconnect and remotely do front line and desk care activities. They have developed a platform to share the workload amongst professional caregivers (B2B) that can be scaled to a “boutique like” comfort service provided by talents to elderly people (peer-to-peer). Health care companies are sought for joint venture, financial and distribution services agreements.

Description

Description: 

The home care business faces two fundamental problems, a huge load of administration work and the predictability and availability of care resources. A Swiss e-health SME develops two digital products under two companies to relieve this pain. Both products were tested in the founders own home care organisation in everyday use and were continuously improved.

1. Administration pain
The ambulatory care process is regulated and requires a lot of administration. Existing software is complex and often too expensive. A care app was developed under the Swiss management company to increase care efficiency. During the development and especially during the use the founders noticed that the app covers a problem that has more potential.

2. Predictability and availability of care resources
There are too often, and usually too few, care resources among caregivers with highly fluctuating needs. No structured process exists to match supply of overcapacity and care-demand. Thus, under the care company the SME starts a care sharing platform, enabled by the existing care app to exchange care labour and capabilities amongst professional car-givers. Later, this B2B care sharing will be scaled with a peer-to-peer (P2P) comfort providing-platform offering conveniences by talents directly to caretakers. Those modules will be made accessible through a web-access point and through interfaces to existing care-software. This gives the care sharing platform access to a wide pool of users. With users gained, the company envisions the care sharing platform to scale with other smart web co-operations. Feasibility of the care sharing business is high as similar aggregator concepts are already available (AirBnb, Parship, Batmaid etc.).
The products of the SME enable care-teams to reduce administration costs and earn more money by making optimal use of resources. This solves three main problems of the caregivers: low income and payment for a demanding job, overburdened administration, and suboptimal work allocation. Ultimately, this will lead to more professional caregivers motivated to entering the care market, freeing up care resources, improving the quality of care, making care more personalised and reducing inefficiency and costs. The social contribution of the company is to reduce the care shortage in European countries and valorising the work of home-caregivers.

At present, the outpatient care market for senior citizens in Switzerland amounts to 55'000 nursing staff (23'000 FTEs) and 400’000 caretakers. The care market is growing at an annual rate of 6.8 % (total ambulatory care costs for health insurances and cantons according to the Swiss Federal Statistic Office).
Canton Bern already committed to invest 150K EUR à fond perdu. With the current round of start-up funding, the company’s goal is to accelerate the development of the different applications, especially improve the user experience and the design of the user interface, expand their sales and marketing activities, and fulfil orders. The Swiss SME is currently seeking a seed capital investment of EUR 1.2 m, which will give them the financial flexibility to achieve these goals.
The aim of the company is to generate a volume of business and a profit in the next five years that will enable it to go public or sell the company. Phase A investment round is foreseen when the company scales the business i.e. by going internationally or by adding other operations such as P2P comfort providing-platform.

The Swiss company is seeking partner from the care sectors or related to life sciences (e.g. e-health) and / or long-term care for different types of partnerships.

- Joint venture or license agreements with software companies willing to joint-develop the app to local needs of the partner-country.
- Distribution services agreement to distribute software and business idea in foreign markets and/or to support with market entry.
- Financial agreements in exchange for equity.

Advantages & innovations

Cooperation plus value: 
Gains for caregivers with temporarily not enough care labour: - Easy to get validated care capacity and complementary capability if client status changes or own workforce is disabled. - Reduced risk of workforce shortage allows to increase number of clients or reduce FTEs thus make more money. - Increase of freedom for own workforce. - Quality and monitoring of external care-work guaranteed with web app. Gains for caregivers with temporarily too much care labour: - Deployment optimisation of own labour resources increases profitability. - Gain external know-how, establish partnership. - Allow to hire more FTEs without risking having overcapacity that cannot be invoiced. - More reliable long-term labour-planning. Gains for both: - No additional administrative work as customer/nurse acquisition, invoicing, money collection, management … are done by the company.

Stage of development

Cooperation stage dev stage: 
Prototype available for demonstration

Partner sought

Cooperation area: 
The specific area of activity of the partner: Provider of care services, health insurances, provider of factoring, developer of care software, developer and franchiser of administration enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, drug delivery services, provider of on-line services for elderly, digital health companies. The tasks to be performed by the partner sought: Financial agreement: - Financial investment in exchange for an equity to finance development costs of software or international franchising. - Interest to expand into the Swiss ambulatory care market. - Eventually join board or advisory board to later engage in the local operational business or to establish contacts to local stakeholders. Distribution services agreement: - Develop a route to customer (caregivers) using partners local knowledge, expertise, and networks. After market entry a long-term distribution partnership may be established, in which the partner company helps establish and manage a supply chain for scaling. Joint venture agreements. - Joint-develop the app to local needs of the partner-country. Assist with the commercialisation of the platform. Partner are expected to give access to their franchise in ambulatory care or seek access to the franchise of the Swiss company in ambulatory care.

Type and size

Cooperation task: 
SME 11-50,SME <10,>500 MNE,251-500,SME 51-250,>500

figure_1.jpg

B2B care sharing platform.