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Cera Care

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Cera Care
IndustryElderly care
Healthcare
Health technology
FoundedNovember 2015 in London, England
FounderMahiben Maruthappu
Headquarters
London
,
England
ServicesHome healthcare & AI
Number of employees
10,000
Websitecerahq.com

Cera is the UK’s largest HealthTech company,[1][2][3] using technology and AI to revolutionise the healthcare landscape by taking healthcare out of hospitals and into patients’ homes, building a more sustainable model of care as the population ages.[3]

Cera has developed AI-backed tools that predict and prevent hospitalisations among older and vulnerable individuals — reducing patient hospitalisations by up to 70% and saving the UK Government and NHS £1 million a day.[4]

Cera employs nearly 10,000 carers and nurses who deliver approximately 2 million home healthcare visits per month, providing home-based care to patients across the UK and Germany.[5] The company covers a population of 30 million people, serving older, vulnerable and high-risk patients, on behalf of governments, insurers and the NHS,[6] with most revenues generated through government and NHS contracts.[1][7]

A HealthTech unicorn,[1][8][3] with £300 million in annualised revenues[9] and 150-fold growth over the past five years,[10] Cera is one of Europe’s fastest-growing businesses,[11][12][13][14] now cash positive.[15] It has been included in the top 10 of the Deloitte Fast 50 rankings for three consecutive years,[16][17][18] also ranking as the UK’s Top HealthTech Company.[19][20][21][22][23][24]

History

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Founding and seed funding (2016-2017)

Cera was formally launched in 2016 by its co-founders, Dr. Ben Maruthappu and Marek Sacha.[25] In November 2016, it raised £1.3m from investors including David Buttress, the former CEO of JustEat, and Peter Sands, the former CEO of Standard Chartered, the largest seed-round funding in European health tech history.[26][27] In April 2017, it raised a further £1.4m in seed funding from investors including French billionaire Xavier Niel’s fund Kima Ventures.[28][29]

Early development and investments (2017-2020)

In 2018, the firm expanded to Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, and acquired care businesses in Huddersfield and Nottingham.[30] They invested £10 million to expand to 14 cities across the UK, roll out new technologies, and launch a recruitment drive for the social care sector through social media.[31][32]

In 2019, the firm launched its Smart Care app, which uses machine learning and data from 68,000 care records reviewed by professionals, to predict and alert carers to possible health deteriorations with 82% accuracy.[33]

Acquisitions and expansion (2021-present)

Cera Care acquired the home care division of Mears Group in February 2020.[34]

In 2020, Cera built and licensed technology to the UK government to help people out of work due to the Coronavirus pandemic to get into work in care. The technology has since been rolled out as ‘Join Social Care’, and has helped 100,000 people secure a meaningful career in care.[35]

During the pandemic, Cera created 10,000 jobs, providing opportunities for those who had lost employment by training them as home carers to support older or vulnerable individuals.[36]

Successful applicants completed training courses and assessments through Cera’s digital platform, allowing them to become certified carers and begin working within ten days.[36]

In August 2021, Cera Care expanded into nursing services at home for people with complex conditions or long COVID-19 and planned to offer clinical training courses for existing care staff.[37] As of September 2021, the company had delivered 10 million care visits to its clients' homes during the Coronavirus pandemic and also announced its plans to create 5,000 new jobs in the UK after early delivery of the company’s initial aim to create 10,000 jobs during the pandemic.[38][39]

According to the Daily Express, Cera launched its new technology product Flu-ID, a digital flu tracker that uses AI and data analytics to reduce hospitalisations and help prevent the NHS from becoming overwhelmed during winter.[40]

In 2022, the company made its first international expansion, to Germany. Cera operates with 50 staff across two locations in Potsdam and Berlin.

In 2022 it raised $320 million and in January 2025 it raised $150 million to further scale its AI-led home healthcare model — cementing its unicorn status with a valuation of over $1 billion.[13][8][1][41][42] Cera said the funding would also help it expand into new service lines in the home, boosting its clinical trials initiative for over 65 and supporting its investment in digital skills and productivity tech for staff.[43]

Cera is one of Europe's fastest-growing companies: turnover rose from £3.6 million in 2019[44] to £300 million in 2024.[9][45][46]

The company has expanded its operations across the UK, conducting approximately 2 million patient home visits per month—around 65,000 per day—comparable in scale to the capacity of all NHS A&E departments nationwide.[47][1]

Technology and Innovation

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Preventative Technology

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At each home visit, Cera staff log patient symptoms digitally in the Cera App while providing care. AI algorithms analyse this data to identify patients at risk of illness or injury, prompting staff to take preventative measures, such as requesting prescriptions or adjusting visit frequency.[1]

Cera’s AI products include a Hospitalisation Predict-Prevent tool which forecasts more than 80% of health risks in advance,[48] educing hospitalisations by up to 70%,[49][50] and a Falls Prevention AI which predicts 83% of falls in advance, reducing patient falls by 20%—with falls representing the leading cause of hospitalisations among individuals aged over 65.[51]

Cera has also developed a High-Risk Alerts system that generates 5,000 daily alerts, enabling carers and nurses to respond to potential health risks, preventing these from escalating into emergencies.[51][52][48][53]

The company is also using a Rapid Hospital Discharge Tool to tackle “bed-blocking” in British hospitals by organising home care for hospital leavers five times faster than average, enabling 80% of its patients to leave hospital the same day they are declared fit for discharge.[54][55][56]

Coupled with hospitalisation prevention, speeding up hospital discharges is key to reducing the pressure on the NHS, with reports showing more than 14,000 hospital beds in England are filled with patients who are medically fit for discharge.[57][58]

AI Productivity Tools

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Productivity tools Cera has developed include an AI Scheduler which reduces carer admin time by as much as 80% and travel time by up to 50%, freeing staff up to deliver an extra two hours’ care a day—boosting their earning potential and impact.[59]

Cera has also developed AI avatars that deliver training to staff at scale, ensuring consistent standards across its 10,000-strong workforce.[60]

Clinical Trials

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In 2024, Cera launched a pioneering clinical trials initiative – a first within the care sector – using its technology and data to make it safer and easier for individuals aged over 65 to take part in clinical trials for conditions such as cancer, dementia, Parkinson’s, and cardiovascular disease.[61][62]

Over-65s account for two-thirds of illnesses in the UK and are behind the majority of the nation’s medication needs, yet they are under-represented in clinical trials – only making up about one-third of participants.[62][63]

Cera’s programme aims to improve healthcare research as the population ages, ensuring medications are more tailored to the people who need them. It will also use technology to remove common barriers to participation in clinical trials for over-65s, such as the need to travel to healthcare centres or lack of awareness about the options available.[63]

The programme is made possible by Cera’s advanced proprietary AI algorithms, which scan over 200 billion patient health data points at speed to identify patients who would benefit from access to clinical trials, whilst also flagging up co-morbidities and other relevant health information, and filtering out any higher-risk patients.[63]

Patient consent, privacy and data security will be front and centre of Cera’s programme. Patients would have to actively apply to take part in any trial, with the help of family if needed, and will be additionally screened by experts before enrolment.[63]

Workforce

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Staff Training and Career Pathways

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Cera prioritises staff training and development, and has launched a number of initiatives to tackle staff shortages across health and social care.

In March 2024, Cera invested over £5 million in a social care career pathway programme for its staff,[64][65] helping carers gain fully funded and professionally recognised qualifications alongside their work. Cera’s Career Pathway is split into two streams, offering clinical and nursing qualifications as well as home care training opportunities. It runs right through from an apprenticeship pathway for early-career employees and operations staff, to development opportunities for skilled carers, middle management, and leadership training.

Getting Britain Back to Work

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Cera is addressing worklessness in the UK, where 9.4 million people are out of work and not seeking employment.[66] In October 2024, the company launched a cross-industry coalition to get Britain Back to Work—creating thousands of digital healthcare jobs for the unemployed and economically inactive individuals, combined with a structured programme providing practical and emotional support to help employees re-enter the workforce.[6]

25% of recent recruits to Cera’s frontline workforce were previously unemployed, and 5% have disabilities that impact their working life. Cera has also set a target for 10% of new recruits between October 2024 and October 2025 to be people returning from a longer period of economic inactivity, for instance, due to long-term sickness, or caring responsibilities at home.[6]

Cera is working to develop a more digitally skilled healthcare workforce by providing staff with hands-on digital training to optimise the use of its technology, improving prevention and care quality.[6][67]

Partnerships and Awards

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As of 2017, Cera Care claimed to have 20 partnerships with NHS organisations, councils, and public organisations, including Dementia Action Alliance.[68] It won the Health Startup of the Year award at the British Startup Awards; the Award for Dementia Care and Rising Star at the LaingBuisson Awards; and the Digital Health Innovation of the Year award at the Global Awards. It was also included at the European Innovation Summit as one of the EU's Top 50 Startups.[69][70][71][72]

In April 2018, following allegations of misleading marketing, CeraCare removed mentions of the partnerships that were not up to date from its website and investigated reviews on Facebook and Trustpilot.[73][74]

At the beginning of 2019, the firm partnered with IBM to test sensors used in self-driving cars to help with monitoring older people.[75][76]

By 2025, Cera works in partnership with more than 150 Local Authorities and two-thirds of NHS Integrated Care Systems, servicing more than 350 public sector contracts in the UK alone.[77]

Cera has been recognised as one of the UK’s fastest-growing private companies, appearing in the top 10 of the Deloitte Fast 50 for three consecutive years[16][17][18] as well as in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 (2020) and the Sunday Times 100 Tech (2025).[78]

In 2024, Cera’s innovative approach was recognised with UK Tech’s Tech for Good Award,[59] Health Tech Digital’s Best Use of AI Award[79] and HealthInvestor’s Innovator of the Year Award.[80]

Previously, it was recognised as Home Care Insight’s 2021 Home Care Provider Of The Year, ranked as the second most disruptive and innovative business by Startups.co.uk[19] and listed as the 8th fastest-growing company by Deloitte.[81] In 2022, the company won Scale-Up Team of the Year at the UK Business Angels Association Awards.

Cera’s founder and CEO, Dr. Ben Maruthappu won EY’s UK Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2024,[82] having been named Great British Entrepreneur of the Year in 2023.[83] In 2020, Dr. Maruthappu was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours, for services to health and care technology.[84]

See also

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References

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