San Francisco-based tech firm Waterlily, which developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that can predict a person’s long-term care needs, closed a US$7-million seed round recently, the company announced.
Waterlily’s AI analyzes an individual’s demographic, medical and financial information against about 500,000 data points to predict their likelihood of needing long-term care, the age at which their needs may start, how those needs may change over time and the level of care required, Lily Vittayarukskul, founder and CEO of Waterlily, said in an interview.
For example, mental health questions are predictive of how intense a potential long-term care event could be, Vittayarukskul said.
“[It’s] not a crystal ball,” she said. “[But] it’s a whole lot better than just assuming you’re the national average.”
Then, the AI uses the submitted information to recommend protection products.
Most advisors grow their assets under management by selling non-insurance products, so they don’t speak to their clients about long-term care as often as they should, Vittayarukskul said.
Waterlily is carrier agnostic. Advisors can upload any product from any carrier and Waterlily will remove all the marketing “bells and whistles” within a minute to extract the payment and payout terms, Vittayarukskul said.
Waterlily launched in March 2024 and has already onboarded eight large insurance and distribution companies in the U.S., including Prudential and Financial Independence Group, Vittayarukskul said.
The seed round was led by Brewer Lane Ventures with participation from Genworth, Nation Wide and Edward Jones Ventures. Tim Kneeland, former CEO of GE Insurance and Transamerica Long Term Care, also participated.
“We think [the investors] can help us unlock distribution in some shape or form across the supplier space,” Vittayarukskul said.
Waterlily hasn’t moved north yet, but it’s already in discussions with large Canadian insurers.
Guaranteed electronic funds transfers come to Canada
Montreal-based financial data aggregator Flinks announced its guaranteed electronic funds transfer to enable real-time account funding.
The traditional electronic funds transfer process in Canada can take several days to process, which could lead to missed investment opportunities for consumers and missed deposit opportunities for financial institutions, Flinks said in a release.
The guaranteed electronic funds transfer offers same-day and risk-free payments by checking account balances and the client’s identity, Flinks said.
RBC rolls out mobile mortgage renewals
RBC clients can now renew their mortgage through the RBC mobile app, the bank announced Thursday.
In the past, most renewals were processed in person. With the mobile option, clients can choose mortgage terms and virtually sign documents in minutes but can pause to speak with an advisor if they want more information, the release said.