UK home care provider Cera has acquired robot technology platform GenieConnect and will scale the use of its home care robots following successful pilots.
Earlier this year, Cera began piloting the use of droid-like robots driven by AI software in patients’ homes, which the firm said carried out 3,000 visits a week to elderly and vulnerable people.
Cera has now acquired GenieConnect, the technology platform behind one of the lines of robots it has been piloting, and secured a deal with the robots’ manufacturer, allowing it to accelerate the adoption of robots across home care.
GenieConnect’s robots help older and vulnerable people with food, drink and medication reminders, as well as checking in on their mood and wellbeing and keeping them connected to care teams and loved ones.
The robots delivered positive results in pilots, with a 96% success rate for ensuring patients take the right medication at the right time, 64-80% success in encouraging people to eat, and 78-90% success in encouraging people to drink regularly.
Dr Ben Maruthappu, founder and chief executive of Cera, said: “At Cera, we believe that virtual care, AI and robotics have a key role to play in the future of this sector – allowing more people to be sustainably cared for, as the population ages and demand for care grows.
“GenieConnect has performed well with our patients this year, and we’re excited to take this platform to the next level, expanding access to high-quality, preventative care, and transforming lives across the country.”
The robots have been trialled successfully by more than 12 local councils and 30 care providers, and Cera plans to roll them out more widely across its own care provision, as well as licensing them across the sector.
The company expects to scale them across several new regions and more care providers over the next 18 months.
Cera also plans to integrate GenieConnect’s software with its own technology and dataset, training the robots with its preventative AI tools so they can help to improve prevention, care quality and health outcomes in vulnerable and older people.
By licensing the robots to other care providers, Cera will scale the impact of its preventative technology across the sector, improving health outcomes while also adding a new revenue stream to its expanding business model.
This acquisition and technology scale-up comes after the firm completed a transaction of more than $150 million (£123m) in January 2025 to further scale its AI-led home healthcare technology.
