FluidAI buys Emmetros as it pushes to modernize patient recovery with AI

Healthtech company FluidAI Medical is acquiring Emmetros Limited to power its outside-the-hospital patient care. Emmetros develops an engagement platform, SparxConnect, that helps health providers tailor their patient care

“This acquisition supports FluidAI’s mission in redefining the standard of surgical care to improve patient outcomes during recovery.”

The Kitchener-Waterloo-based firm said in a news release today that it will use Emmetros’ know-how to upgrade Stream Inara, an AI-based platform that educates, monitors, and supports surgery patients. The technology is meant to get patients home sooner while keeping them safe and connected with clinicians.

FluidAI bills the acquisition as key to its overall strategy.

“This acquisition supports FluidAI’s mission in redefining the standard of surgical care to improve patient outcomes during recovery for safer early discharge after general and gastrointestinal surgery,” CEO Youssef Helwa said in a statement.

FluidAI hasn’t disclosed the terms of the deal, including how Emmetros will change. BetaKit has asked the company for comment. In her own statement, Emmetros CEO Mary Pat Hinton said FluidAI shares a “deep commitment” to improving patient care, and that the two have supporting technologies.

“[FluidAI’s] expertise in real-time continuous monitoring really is the perfect complement to our highly customizable and extensible patient engagement and collaboration platform,” Hinton said.

FluidAI (which was known as NERv Technology until 2022) was founded in 2014 and began life as a University of Waterloo fourth-year design project from Helwa and Amr Abdelgawad. It offers two products beyond Stream Inara. Origin, a post-surgery monitoring device, recently received approval from the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for sale in the country, giving FluidAI wide access to a major market. Stream Care is an AI-based suite that identifies surgery patients at risk of complications, while Stream CMx is a clinical documentation and generation tool.

Emmetros was also founded in 2014 and is based in the Kitchener-Waterloo region.

FluidAI describes acquisitions as a “core part” of its strategy to bolster and expand its influence. However, this is just the company’s second acquisition deal since it bought the intellectual property of one-time American rival Medsix in 2022. It received a $15-million Series A funding round in 2023 led by Graphene Ventures and SOSV. This July, the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) invested $2 million in FluidAI as part of a larger strategy to back Waterloo-area businesses.

Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Vitaly Gariev.