The Ludwigsburg-based start-up Deep Care has won over several investors and is now delighted to have received a single-digit million euro amount of funding. S-Kap and ES-Kapital, two investment companies of the savings banks in Pforzheim and Esslingen, as well as Thomas Balgheim, Christian Terborg and two other investors, who do not wish to be named, joined the round. The start-up intends to use the funds to accelerate its growth and expand its customer base.
Anyone who sits in front of a PC for hours on end at work is likely to be familiar with accompanying symptoms such as tension, headaches and back pain. The aim of the Ludwigsburg-based start-up is to eliminate precisely these complaints from the daily lives of many office workers. Deep Care is a high-tech start-up in the healthcare sector that aims to revolutionise workplace health promotion through artificial intelligence. With their digital health coach "ISA", they want to help employees achieve sufficient exercise, better ergonomics and more vitality while at work. The main target groups are companies, but also health insurance companies, which invest heavily in the health of their employees. One reason for this is the high cost of days lost due to illness. In addition, many companies use such health programmes as part of their employer branding to retain and attract employees.
However, the founders are pursuing more than just economic goals with their start-up. In fact Lack of exercise a major social problem. According to the DKV Report 2021, the average adult in Germany sits for around 8 hours a day. The health consequences can be serious and are linked to common diseases such as high blood pressure and back pain. According to the DAK Health Report 2018, the latter is the most common single diagnosis for sick leave. "It's obvious that we don't move enough in our everyday lives and that an hour of exercise in the evening is not enough to compensate for the deficit accumulated during the day," says Andrej Baraban (S-Kap) and is certain that "ISA has a direct positive impact on health and well-being in both the short and long term."
Founder and Managing Director Dr Milad Geravand explains exactly how the device makes this possible. "ISA has data protection-compliant sensor technology that recognises the user's movement behaviour. Deep learning algorithms can evaluate this and create an individual strain profile in real time. Above a certain value, ISA then provides information that leads to relief. Depending on the situation, this can be ergonomic posture corrections or compensatory exercises, for example."
The health benefits and practical suitability of ISA were recently confirmed. Through the nomination of one of its client companies, Deep Care was awarded the "Top Brand Corporate Health 2022", which was created by the EUPD Research is awarded.
Christian Terborg (Terian Capital) sees great potential for users and explains his involvement as follows: "Deep Care is guided by a clear vision. With ISA, Deep Care has brought an easy-to-use device to the market that contributes to improving people's health and effectively prevents musculoskeletal disorders. The experienced team at Deep Care will fulfil this promise."
