Before Michael Wang built an AI platform for senior living, he was a Green Beret and later a senior care nurse who could only protect one resident at a time. That experience led him to launch Inspiren, a startup that gives senior living caregivers an extra set of eyes by using ambient AI to catch falls and safety risks before they happen.
On Thursday, New York-based Inspiren raised $70 million in Series C capital, bringing its fundraising total to $225 million. The round, led by NewView Capital, prices the startup at a valuation exceeding $500 million.
Wang, who serves as Inspiren’s chief clinical officer, founded the company in 2016. The idea grew out of his years as a bedside geriatrics and cardiothoracic surgical nurse, where he witnessed firsthand how thin the margin for error was.
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“It comes from a very practical place where I can only keep one resident safe at a time, and that resident has to be right in front of me,” Wang said. “As soon as I walk out of that door, it’s anyone’s guess on the safety and well-being of that particular person.”
In his eyes, this problem is what Inspiren’s technology is built to solve. The company’s proprietary hardware device is called AUGi, short for augmented intelligence, he explained. It mounts on the wall of a resident’s apartment and uses computer vision and sensors to detect their movement patterns — such as getting up from a chair or walking unsteadily — that often precede a fall, sending caregivers an alert before it occurs rather than after.
Wang noted that Inspiren’s product is different from traditional camera-based monitoring systems, as it processes everything on the device itself instead of streaming footage to the cloud. This way, there is no lag and no offsite team reviewing video before alerting staff.
He added that Inspiren manufactures its own hardware rather, opting not to rely on off-the-shelf cameras, which gives the company more control over how data is captured and processed. But Wang argued the company’s biggest edge isn’t the hardware at all.
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“I think that really the ultimate differentiator is the strength of our clinical team,” he declared. “We have a very large team of clinical folks who are advisors and also consultants that meet with the community on a weekly or biweekly basis, allowing them to be able to leverage the technology as well as the data.”
Wang said that clinical support is baked into how Inspiren sells its technology — and that the company currently serves more than 500 senior living communities across the country.
With its new capital, Wang said Inspiren plans to expand its go-to-market team, build out its hardware ecosystem and push its AI models to detect and predict a wider range of resident needs.
He added that the company also intends to grow beyond fall prevention, deepening features like staff optimization and its recently launched AI-powered emergency call system.
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