Founder & CEO | Robotics (HealthCare)
Founder & CEO - NightWatch
One robot. One floor. One job. The automation layer for US senior living
Location: United States
Start date: ASAP
Founders Factory builds and funds startups together with exceptional entrepreneurs and the world's leading companies. Created by IPO-exited founders, we offer founders capital, operational support from a team of hands-on experts, and unrivalled access to a coalition of industry-leading corporate partners. Since 2015, Founders Factory's 450+ portfolio companies have secured 500+ pilots and commercial contracts with our partners.
Our Studio partners with entrepreneurs at day one, developing new ideas, technologies and business models into high-growth companies. In partnership with a leading global industrial technology partner, we are building a new portfolio of ventures.
About the Venture
America's ~1,900 continuing-care retirement communities (CCRCs) are the only elder-care buyers whose model rewards keeping residents healthier for longer: residents join at 75-80, pay a large entry fee (avg. ~$402k) plus $12-30k a month, and the community carries the lifetime cost of care. These campuses staff their night shifts at roughly twice the regulatory minimum - comfort-driven cover that can't simply be cut - and once holidays, sickness and cover are loaded, each night position carries ~$160k of true annual cost. Worse, the status quo causes the harm it exists to prevent: around 80% of falls happen in the window right after a nurse's check wakes the resident. Existing tech - pull cords, wearables, fixed sensors - is safety kit that never changes the staffing model.
We are building NightWatch: a mobile UWB-radar robot that patrols the corridor at night, senses through doors and walls, and reports movement as fact - in bed, out of bed, in the bathroom, on the floor - never as clinical judgement. Data is monitored remotely, and staff are alerted only when a physical check is warranted. No cameras. No wearables. No per-room installation. Sold as robot-as-a-service, it delivers a two-to-three-month payback and is the easiest pilot in the category to say yes to: zero capex, zero installation, nothing entering residents' rooms, and fully reversible.
The unfair advantage: our partner brings a production robotics stack already live in market with a paying customer - autonomous navigation, docking and fleet software - plus radar and UWB signal-processing IP already built, manufacturing scale to drive unit cost down, and edge compute that lifts the all-important robots-to-operator ratio. The sensing IP and the ROI model are the moat.
Our Offer
We don't just fund ideas - we co-build them. Join as Founder & CEO and get access to a full-stack venture studio offering designed to give you the best possible start:
The programme runs in two phases:
Months 0-6 (Build)
$128k ring-fenced build budget to cover founder stipends and additional specialist resource at the founders' discretion
Founder stipends are $6,675 per founder per month, drawn from this budget
Embedded studio team throughout: a full time venture builder, with support from a broader team consisting of a studio lead and growth marketer. Founders build; the Studio supports.
On-demand access to specialist support across data science, applied AI, fundraising, legal, finance, PR and commercial partnerships
Dedicated network access from day one
Months 6-12 (Accelerator / Spinout)
At incorporation, the founding team will receive 70% equity in a new company set up for the venture, and the Studio 15%, both subscribed at nominal value. The remaining 15% is reserved as an employee option pool.
$320k cash investment goes directly into the new venture's bank account at IC approval - full founder discretion over how funds are deployed
Accelerator support: a dedicated squad covering growth, product and fundraising, plus continued access to shared services
Jobs to be Done
As Founder & CEO, you will be responsible for turning a strong thesis into a scaled, defensible business.
Define the wedge. Choose the operator profile and the 3-state cluster (consistent regulation) where you run concurrent pilots first.
Turn a thesis into a product. Work with our partner's robotics teams to take the night-patrol robot and its remote-monitoring layer from concept to a fleet operators can run.
Win the first pilots. Land 2-3 CCRC / senior-living operators and prove FTE substitution through the pilot sequence - service level held with one less night headcount.
Sell savings, not safety. Frame the buy as an ROI decision for the CFO/COO, positioned as redeployment, not redundancy.
Drive the economics. Push the robots-to-operator ratio toward the levels that make margins trend to software, working with our partner on a path to lower unit cost.
Build the company. Hire the initial team, raise capital, and establish the venture as the automation layer for senior living.
Your Ideal Experience
We are not looking for a traditional senior-living executive or a pure robotics researcher. The ideal candidate sits at the intersection.
Founder or senior operator who has built a hardware / robotics or hardware-as-a-service product from zero to one, ideally in the US market.
Deep familiarity with at least one buyer segment: US senior living / CCRC operators, eldercare, or enterprise facilities operations.
Enterprise commercial instinct: you can navigate multi-site operator sales cycles and turn a pilot into a fleet rollout.
Strong product and technical instincts: you can reason about robotics, sensing, edge compute and unit economics even if you are not building the robot yourself.
Comfortable operating in ambiguity: shaping the product, defining the buyer, and making irreversible calls with incomplete data.
Credibility with conservative care operators and forward-looking venture investors, and willingness to be on the ground in the US.
Most importantly, you are motivated by category creation - building the operational backbone for how America ages, on robots you put there first.
This is your company. We're here to help.