Berlin Many Germans, mostly living alone and in need of care, rely on a home emergency call in everyday life. The transmitter of the alarm system with the conspicuous red button usually dangles around the neck, hangs on the wrist or lingers on the bedside table. The start-up Patronus wants to bring the system up to date with its own approach.
“We make smartwatches senior-friendly with our software, it blocks all other functions,” says company boss Tim Wagner. “My grandma wears the watch now, can see the time and if something happens to her, she presses a button on the side and talks to our emergency center via the watch and we organize help.”
Investors, including Adjacent from the USA and Singular from France, are now giving the Berliners 27 million euros for the modernization of the emergency call as part of a Series A financing round. Burda Principal Investments (BPI) and the existing investors Cavalry Ventures and UVC Partners also participated. According to Wagner’s plan, in five years the around one million home emergency call devices currently in use should be smartwatches.
“The red button often fails because it is not worn at all,” says Wagner, who founded Patronus at the end of 2020 together with Ben Staudt and received support from the McMakler founders, among others, right from the start. He’s convinced that the Patronus watch will be perceived as less stigmatizing: “My best mate’s grandpa thinks it’s cool and always shows it to his skat buddies.”
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In addition, the clock does not only work within your own four walls, as it is independent of a base station. It also works “when you are in the garden or going for a walk”. But Wagner also knows about the challenges when it comes to winning customers in this age group: “It’s not that easy to convince seniors of innovations.”
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The market is big. According to the Federal Statistical Office, around 4.1 million people in need of care lived in Germany at the end of 2019 – around two thirds of them at home. The trend is rising and the number of caring relatives is decreasing. This increases the need for smart technologies that make it easier to get by in your own four walls.
Patronus is in competition with devices that have been offered for decades by aid organizations established in the care of the elderly, such as the DRK, Johanniter, Malteser and ASB. All of these offers are aimed at those who want to live independently at home for as long as possible, but who may no longer be able to help themselves in an emergency. Every provider has additional services up their sleeve – such as depositing an apartment key, “I’m fine” calls, fall alarms or meals on wheels. Reliable market data, including economic potential, are not published.
The core service, however, is the emergency call, and in the event of an emergency, Patronus relies on established structures and switchboards from cooperation partners. “Depending on the need, these emergency call centers alert the nearest rescue service through a direct connection to the rescue control centers,” says Wagner. In addition, sometimes instead, the emergency contacts specified by the user are notified.
There is also the possibility of informing the Malteser on-call service in the case of non-medical calls for help, for example if those affected can no longer get out of their armchairs. Without a care classification, up to 49 euros per month are due for the watch and the service, with up to 18.70 euros depending on the care level.
Unlike the Maltese, the Hospitallers do not work with Patronus. “From our point of view, the basic framework conditions for cooperation have not been met. For example, the Patronus watch is not a nursing aid approved by health insurance companies. The battery life and robustness of the device do not meet our quality standards,” says a spokeswoman for Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe.
For example, if the GSM transmission used with Patronus fails, the emergency call cannot reach the alarm center and the person will not be helped. The optics cannot make up for these problems either. Around 245,000 customers currently use the Johanniter emergency call service.
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Patronus claims to be profitable. However, Wagner does not want to give specific figures, he also keeps the sales figures of the watch under lock and key. Instead, the Berliners publish on their website how often their emergency call has already been triggered – most recently the number was 6172.
Equipped with the fresh money, Patronus now wants to open up new business areas. “We are the first to digitize these people,” says Wagner. Patronus wants to make the data obtained available to others in the form of an app. A family app is currently being tested on around 150 people who take care of seniors, Wagner explains: “With my grandmother, for example, my mother uses it to take care of her. She can see on the app if my grandma got up when she left the house and she can call her directly from the watch.”
The device is inherently mobile.
(Photo: Patronus)
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He assures that Patronus adheres to all data protection rules. The information would be stored in encrypted form on German servers and personal and medical data would be listed in various databases. The application should be on the market by the end of the year.
Patronus is already talking to interested nursing services and general practitioners. “The employees are completely overwhelmed. For example, they can use our app to inform those affected in advance that a visit is imminent and make sure that the people are at home by then,” says Wagner.
However, the biggest challenge of Patronus as well as all other providers does not change. In order to be able to deliver data at all and to be of help in an emergency, the watch, like all other emergency call devices, must not be left on the bedside table in the early morning.
More: Why a care place from now on costs up to 1000 euros more per month – what to expect for relatives