Vital sign monitoring is critical for health care providers to gauge a patient’s health, well-being, and responsiveness to treatment. These vitals are also indicators of future illness in many cases. Technologies using video combined with ambient light monitoring, radar, and sound made possible by modern sensors allow vital sign monitoring to now happen without contact or even remotely. Norbert Health has developed a vital monitoring solution that provides continuous monitoring for a number of vitals including temperature, heart rate, heart rate variability, and pulse wave velocity (indicator of blood pressure) with readings for respiratory rate and oxygen levels coming soon. On the back end, the company offers a robust data platform to manage these readings whether it’s in a healthcare, workplace setting, or home setting, leading to an unprecedented understanding of health patterns and illness before the onset of any visible systems
AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Alexandre Winter to learn more about how Norbert has built the technology to make contactless monitoring a reality, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, and much, much more.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
This was a $5M Seed II round led by Serena Capital and HCVC, and with a large contribution from Exor, C4 Ventures, LDV Capital, and Newlab. Our total funding is $8M.
Tell us about the product or service that Norbert Health offers.
At Norbert, our mission is to make vital signs scanning and monitoring fast, efficient, easy, and ubiquitous. We have built the first-ever ambient health scanner that can measure vital signs for anyone within a 6 ft range, and does not require any effort from the patient being scanned.
In addition, this scanner is the first of its kind that utilizes sensors that incorporate data across the entire spectrum: sound, centimeter wave, millimeter wave, LWIR, and visible light.
We also offer a variety of ways to utilize our data – a medical dashboard for patient examination or monitoring, enterprise-grade platform to implement health screening in office spaces or factories, and health-at-home platforms for remote patient monitoring.
What inspired the start of Norbert Health?
We learned the importance of constant ambient monitoring from a personal tragedy. Our original purpose behind the creation of the device was to monitor the health of vulnerable patients from the comfort of their own homes, including the elderly, those with chronic diseases, and those just discharged from in-patient care.
How is Norbert Health different?
Most vital sign products, whether bulky hospital equipment or a smaller wearable, require some type of contact to obtain a reading. Others that can detect your vital signs via a mobile device like a smartphone require you to actively opt-in for a reading. In addition, those mobile devices only tend to utilize a camera. Norbert’s device uses infrared, camera, radar, and sound.
Our device is the most comprehensive vital sign scanner on the market and being that it’s completely contactless makes it efficient and much easier to use than other products. Additionally, most products are built to measure only 1 vital sign. We measure multiple vitals now and have packed the device with multiple sensors which will allow us to continue to release more health features going forward. More data improves accuracy, and improves outcomes.
What market does Norbert Health target and how big is it?
Norbert Health targets the vital sign monitoring market, along with the wearable technology market. Combined, the two amount to a market size of nearly $40B. These two markets are also expected to grow at a fast rate (with a CAGR of around 15%) especially given the new global health consciousness due to the pandemic.
What’s your business model?
Our pricing model is $299 to buy the device and from $49 to $99 per month, depending on the customer’s specific use case. We estimate that we will sell 2-8 devices per location. Our subscription service provides users with the user experience of seeing the vital signs without contact in real-time, but also trends and notifications of changes in their vital health. As we add more features and ultimately predictive algorithms, we may add subscription tiers, but for now, we have a very simple subscription model that provides users with current and future software features.
How has COVID-19 impacted the business?
The pandemic has greatly accelerated innovation in health monitoring technology, with numerous contactless temperature solutions and ambient health monitoring devices.
However, many only address a single component in a complex picture of an individual’s health. Kinsa, for example, only utilizes temperature to predict illness. While temperature may help identify the onset of some illnesses, it cannot alone indicate if an individual is in failing health (especially if monitoring non-infectious disease).
It is also important to have the ability to ambiently monitor health, especially in healthcare spaces. It’s unrealistic to ask a patient just out of surgery to check in on their phones every two hours.
Norbert Health’s scanner is the only multi-modal contactless health solution at such an affordable price point.
What was the funding process like?
The market late 2020 early 2021 was definitely not the usual market – we had a lot of interest from many firms, but getting past the finish line might have been a little more challenging than usual – we have seen this with fellow entrepreneurs raising at the same times for early-stage ventures like us. The market today is much more active and this is exciting to see!
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Pitching on zoom was definitely a challenge in the sense that is harder to communicate and create a bond with potential investors – on the bright side it is much more efficient in terms of time spent and air travel!
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Investor interest was driven by multiple factors. Primarily, they understood the dire need of this kind of device, even beyond the context of COVID-19. They shared our vision of more accessible healthcare, along with the importance of ambient health monitoring in the office and in hospitals. They believe there’s a truly untapped market that we’re reaching.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
In the next six months, we plan to manufacture our devices to scale, ensuring they’re in a variety of places (including businesses, hospitals, and even factories) where we know there’s need. We’ll also pursue regulatory approval, both in the US and the EU. In addition, we intend to incorporate additional types of vital sign monitoring, including pulse wave velocity and SpO2.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Go to market now 🙂 There is a lot of capital and not that many great deals for investors, so if you have a sound and fast-growing business with lots of potential, now is the time to raise a round!
Go to market now 🙂 There is a lot of capital and not that many great deals for investors, so if you have a sound and fast-growing business with lots of potential, now is the time to raise a round!
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Near term, we see our devices in more hospitals and enterprises, further verifying our technology’s authenticity. We have a number of pilot studies lined up in the future, where we’ll collect more data, incorporate more metrics, and continue testing our device’s medical-grade capabilities.
What’s your favorite outdoor dining restaurant in NYC
The backyard at Missada in Fort Greene – this place is so good… Also, I have to admit I go to Frankie’s in Carroll Gardens way too often – what a beautiful and cozy backyard!
