Lily Vittayarukskul (pictured above) was learning aerospace engineering when her aunt was recognized with terminal colon most cancers. Her aunt had lived underneath the identical roof as Vittayarukskul whereas she was rising up and helped increase her. “We went all in on her care,” she recalled.
Submit-chemotherapy, Vittayarukskul’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 advised TechCrunch.
The emotional and monetary impression was so traumatic that it prompted Vittayarukskul to pivot her research to genetic and knowledge science.
Finally, she based Waterlily, a now four-year-old, San Francisco startup geared toward serving to people and advisors navigate long-term care choices by modeling prices and funding methods. Its aim, in response to Vittayarukskul, is to make it simpler for monetary advisors and insurance coverage brokers “to suggest the best monetary merchandise primarily based on a household’s predicted long-term care wants.”
Defined Vittayarukskul, “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 best method to pay for it,” Vittayarukskul advised TechCrunch. “Which 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 greater than 500 million knowledge factors and machine studying algorithms utilizing its AI modeling software program in an effort “to make extremely personalised care and price predictions” and forecast the “when,” “how,” and “how a lot” of somebody’s potential long-term care wants.
“We have now formal data-sharing agreements with long-term care suppliers, authorities databases, educational analysis research, and particular person customers” — these embrace the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers and the Federal Lengthy Time period Care Insurance coverage Program — and we’re finalizing comparable contracts with insurance coverage carriers to securely ingest their anonymized knowledge,” Vittayarukskul stated.
Vittayarukskul initially began Waterlily as a solo founder till Evan Ehrenberg, a small angel investor, got here alongside. Ehrenberg — who had beforehand based and bought Clara Well being — helped with early analysis, and was struck by the trade’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 food 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 1000’s of sufferers discover trials, however he additionally noticed what number of turned to them not for cutting-edge therapies, however for generic copycats of present medicine as a result of insurance coverage wouldn’t cowl the name-brand medicine they wanted. Lengthy-term care introduced an analogous realization — medical health insurance doesn’t cowl it, and plenty of are unprepared for the monetary burden, famous Vittayarukskul.
“After six months of working collectively, we knew it was an ideal match and made him a co-founder,” she stated.
Ehrenberg’s personal backstory is attention-grabbing: After graduating from UC Berkeley at 16, he grew to become MIT’s youngest neuroscience PhD. As we speak, he additionally serves as Waterlily’s chief working officer.
Standing out in a sophisticated area
Different instruments exist that assist with long-term planning, however Vittayarukskul believes they differ from Waterlily’s extra personalised providing. Genworth’s value of care calculator, for instance, exhibits ZIP-code averages. NaviPlan, eMoney, MoneyGuidePro, and RightCapital are broader financial-planning platforms that embrace primary long-term care modules or value calculators as one in every of their a number of features.
Based on her, “Whereas these instruments assist advisors mannequin retirement and insurance coverage situations, their LTC assumptions are sometimes pushed by nationwide averages or Monte Carlo simulations with the intention to stress-test monetary planning by introducing noise right into a primary 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 Vittayarukskul advised TechCrunch the startup’s month-to-month recurring income (MRR) at present is larger than 22x what it was after its first month out there. And, she stated, its common month-over-month MRR progress since its launch has been 58%.
The corporate at present has eight “main” enterprise prospects, together with Prudential and “a number of different Fortune 100 insurance coverage carriers.” There are additionally tons of of impartial monetary advisors and insurance coverage brokers who use Waterlily, in response to Vittayarukskul. 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 accomplice of Brewer Lane Ventures, with strategic investments from Genworth, Nationwide, and Edward Jones. The startup beforehand raised a $2.2 million 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 by way of a SAFE, to construct out its engineering knowledge science and enterprise administration groups, in addition to to proceed strengthening its AI fashions and knowledge partnerships. It additionally plans to extend its gross sales and advertising efforts.
Presently, the startup has 9 full-time staff along with contractors.
Wanting forward, Waterlily is incapacity, crucial 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 choices,” Vittayarukskul stated.
The corporate says it is usually receiving curiosity from insurance coverage carriers that wish to use its knowledge in underwriting. It probably would possibly broaden internationally as nicely to Canada, the U.Ok., and components of Asia.
Investor Kim, who can also be former president of New York Life, advised 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 at present. Waterlily’s steerage software has no comparable providing. It supplies a custom-made and personalised advice for one’s LTC wants. I consider will probably be a recreation changer for the LTC insurance coverage market.”
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