• The Canary home monitoring system – which allows family and friends to check in on elderly relatives – launches today
• Its makers are also raising £250k with the help of the equity crowdfunding platform SyndicateRoom
• SyndicateRoom’s unique blended model means half of the funds will come from professional investors, with the rest from smaller investors investing as little as £1000

The makers of a home monitoring system that allows elderly people to live in their own homes for longer have enlisted the equity crowdfunding platform SyndicateRoom to help their business take off.

Canary is a series of sensors which, when installed in an elderly person’s home, can check that everything is as it should be – and provide peace of mind for their loved ones. They allow family, friends and carers to monitor online the temperature, movement and even who is visiting.

The system can recognize if the elderly person has been to the kitchen to eat, if their house is warm enough, and whether a visitor (such as a carer) has been at the expected time. Canary doesn’t use cameras or microphones so nobody can be seen or heard, but if anything out of the ordinary does occur, the system will send an alert to designated family and friends by email or text.

Today’s launch comes just days after the Institute for Public Policy Research predicted that by 2017 the number of older people in need of care will outstrip the number of adult children able to provide it.

The engineers behind the Canary device, who are led by the co-founder of Acorn Computers Christopher Curry, are also raising £250,000 by selling shares in the business through the equity crowdfunding platform SyndicateRoom.

SyndicateRoom is fully authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, and is the first platform of its kind to allow smaller private investors to invest in start-ups alongside established business “angels” – i.e. professional investors.

A group of professional investors has already pledged £125,000 to Canary Systems; now small investors are being invited to put in the same amount. The minimum investment is just £1000, and those buying shares will be entitled to a share of future profits.

SyndicateRoom provides investors with the peace of mind that traditional equity-based crowdfunding platforms do not: the knowledge that each company available for investment has already received at least 25% of its funding target from professional investors, who are putting their own money on the line too.

Gonçalo de Vasconcelos, founder and CEO, SyndicateRoom, commented:

“Canary Systems’ technology provides huge reassurance to anyone with an elderly loved one who lives alone, and meets a growing need within the care sector by helping older people to live independently in their own homes for longer.

“Canary’s monitoring system is just what the doctor ordered. It requires no phone or internet connection, and offers instant peace of mind to those of us who want to know that our elderly relatives are well but can’t visit every day.

“SyndicateRoom has a track record both of attracting impressive start-ups like Canary Systems and of securing investment from high-level professional investors. Our unique blended model means that smaller investors can get in on the act too – allowing them to invest directly into a business with the reassuring knowledge that it has been vetted and deemed investment-ready by a panel of successful angel investors.”