Lily Vittayaruksku was finding out aerospace engineering when her aunt was identified with terminal colon most cancers. Her aunt had lived beneath the identical roof as Vittayaruksku whereas she was rising up and helped increase her. “We went all in on her care,” she recalled.
Put up-chemotherapy, Vittayaruksku’s aunt “grew to become very frail,” so her household – initially from Cambodia – navigated about two and half years of her every day long-term care wants. “It wiped us out financially,” she instructed TechCrunch.
The emotional and monetary influence was so traumatic that it prompted Vittayaruksku to pivot her research to genetic and information science.
Finally, she based Waterlily, a now four-year-old, San Francisco startup geared toward serving to people and advisors navigate lengthy -term care choices by modeling prices and funding methods. Its objective, in accordance with Vittayaruksku, is to make it simpler for monetary advisors and insurance coverage brokers “to advocate the fitting monetary merchandise based mostly on a household’s predicted long-term care wants.”
Defined Vittayaruksku, “Normally people begin to consider long-term care once they’re between the ages of 65 and 70, or simply once they want it.” However in lots of circumstances, that may be too late.
Waterlily makes use of synthetic intelligence to foretell a household’s future long-term care wants and prices after which guides them “in constructing a care plan and determining the fitting method to pay for it,” Vittayaruksku instructed TechCrunch. “That may imply shopping for life insurance coverage with a long-term care rider, buying a devoted LTC coverage, utilizing annuities, or just self-funding.”
Waterlily’s predictive AI can be utilized for any particular person over 40.
The corporate pulls from over 500 million information factors and machine studying algorithms utilizing its AI modeling software program in an effort “to make extremely customized care and value predictions” and forecast the “when,” “how,” and “how a lot” of somebody’s potential long-term care wants.
“We’ve formal data-sharing agreements with long-term care suppliers, authorities databases, educational analysis research, and particular person customers” – these embody the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers and the Federal Lengthy Time period Care Insurance coverage Program – and we’re finalizing related contracts with insurance coverage carriers to securely ingest their anonymized information,” Vittayaruksku mentioned.
Vittayaruksku initially began Waterlily as a solo founder till Evan Ehrenberg, a small angel investor, got here alongside. Ehrenberg – who had beforehand based and offered Clara Well being – helped with early analysis, and was struck by the business’s response. Curious, he examined the platform himself and was shocked by his long-term care predictions — a lot in order that he modified his eating regimen, employed a private coach, and up to date his monetary plans.
That have pulled him in deeper. He noticed parallels between long-term care and points he’d encountered in medical trials. Clara Well being had helped tens of hundreds of sufferers discover trials, however he additionally noticed what number of turned to them not for cutting-edge remedies, however for generic copycats of present medication as a result of insurance coverage wouldn’t cowl the name-brand medication they wanted. Lengthy-term care introduced an identical realization — medical insurance doesn’t cowl it, and lots of are unprepared for the monetary burden, famous Vittayaruksku.
“After six months of working collectively, we knew it was a terrific match and made him a co-founder,” she mentioned.
Ehrenberg’s personal backstory is fascinating: After graduating from UC Berkeley at 16, he grew to become MIT’s youngest neuroscience Ph.D. At present, he additionally serves as Waterlily’s chief working officer.
Standing out in an advanced house
Different instruments exist that assist with long-term planning, however Vittayaruksku believes they differ from Waterlily’s extra customized providing. Genworth’s price of care calculator, for instance, reveals zip-code averages. NaviPlan, eMoney, MoneyGuidePro, and RightCapital are broader financial-planning platforms that embody fundamental long-term care modules or price calculators as one in all their a number of features.
In accordance with her, “Whereas these instruments assist advisors mannequin retirement and insurance coverage situations, their LTC assumptions are usually pushed by nationwide averages or Monte Carlo simulations as a way to stress-test monetary planning by introducing noise right into a fundamental default simulation.” Waterlily, against this, “blends deep predictive modeling with an easy-to-use platform.”
Waterlily solely launched its platform publicly in March of 2024 so it doesn’t have year-over-year metrics but, however Vittayaruksku instructed TechCrunch the startup’s month-to-month recurring income (MRR) as we speak is larger than 22x what it was after its first month available in the market. And, she mentioned, its common month-over-month MRR development since its launch has been 58%.
The corporate presently has eight “main” enterprise clients, together with Prudential and “a number of different Fortune 100 insurance coverage carriers.” There are additionally a whole lot of impartial monetary advisors and insurance coverage brokers who use Waterlily, in accordance with Vittayaruksku. Its income mannequin is SaaS-based, with the corporate charging $250 per advisor or agent seat per 30 days.
And now the startup has raised $7 million in seed funding led by John Kim, founding associate of Brewer Lane Ventures, with strategic investments from Genworth, Nationwide, and Edward Jones. The startup beforehand raised a $2.2M pre-seed spherical from traders together with Scott Barclay, managing director of healthcare at Perception Companions.
Waterlily plans to make use of its new capital, which was raised through a SAFE, to construct out its engineering information science and enterprise administration groups, in addition to to proceed strengthening its AI fashions and information partnerships. It additionally plans to extend its gross sales and advertising efforts.
Presently, the startup has 9 full-time workers along with contractors.
Trying forward, Waterlily is taking a look at incapacity, vital sickness, hospital indemnity and Medicare planning, or “actually any space the place superior predictive modeling would assist households make higher life and well being protection selections,” Vittayaruksku mentioned.
The corporate says it is usually receiving curiosity from insurance coverage carriers that wish to use its information in underwriting. It probably would possibly broaden internationally as nicely to Canada, the UK and components of Asia.
Investor Kim, who can also be former president of New York Life, instructed TechCrunch that he put cash into Waterlily as a result of he believes it’s “the primary AI native steerage software to help within the single largest want as People age.”
He added: “LTC insurance coverage is a big and rising want, and largely underserved by trusted advisors as we speak. Waterlily’s steerage software has no comparable providing. It gives a personalized and customized advice for one’s LTC wants. I imagine will probably be a sport changer for the LTC insurance coverage market.”
