"[...] That was the moment of realisation for me. Having thought ‘okay I can create this tech and sell it to help people’ I suddenly realised what this would actually entail and how much money it was going to take." 

EIT Health Rising Stars

“Just Keep Going”: How Caregiving Inspired Rebecca McManus to Launch Amethyst Care 

Interview with Rebecca McManus, CEO, Amethyst Care 

How do you go from tech sales to launching a healthcare startup? For Rebecca McManus, it was all about bringing together her years of professional skills in the tech world and her lived experience as a caregiver for her parents. In this interview, we find out what inspired her to start Amethyst Care, the ups and downs of building something new, and how important it is to ‘just keep going’! 

Tell us a bit about you and how you got here…. 

So, my professional background is tech sales. I've worked for a number of different tech companies over the years like Citrix, Pluralsight and Cleo in B-to-B corporate sales. A lot of people would ask me ‘well then how did you end up in healthcare if that's your background?’

My lived experience as a caregiver to both of my parents led me to create Amethyst Care five years ago. My dad had Parkinson's and Lewy bodies dementia, and my mum had breast cancer, so I feel like I've just been around illnesses for quite a big chunk of my life and seen the challenges first hand. So, it was really about combining those two pieces of life experience and work experience to create something that could potentially help other people.

What do you do when you’re not working or innovating?

Whenever someone asks this question, you end up thinking ‘yeah, what do I actually do with myself when I’m not working?!’ I love to cook. I feel like it’s the only time my brain switches off, where I don’t focus on anything other than trying not to burn things and trying not to chop my fingers off! So that’s my downtime.

Tell us about Amethyst Care, what problem you are solving, what does the future of the company look like?

Loneliness and isolation are one of the leading causes for hospital readmissions. So, our goal is to keep people out of hospitals and out of nursing homes for longer and keep them in their homes and independent. Our technology is an AI voice companion that talks to people at home throughout the day, it can do things like medication reminders, or asking questions that a clinician would normally ask. This means that we are collecting data to assess how somebody is doing over the course of weeks, months, or years rather than just how they seem when they attend one appointment at a single timepoint. This gives a much more holistic view of wellbeing and enables potential intervention points to prevent hospital admission. We are kicking off our trials next week in Ohio and then we are going to be raising around €2.5M to hopefully grow the team to 17 people in 2026.

What has been the most rewarding moment of your journey so far?

That's a good question. I suppose for me it took a while to get funded so when we received just over €500,000 from Enterprise Ireland a year ago that was the biggest win to date. It’s not that it’s about the actual money, but unless you have the money you can’t do much. So, it felt hugely rewarding to me to unlock the potential to push forward, and it felt like the solution had been truly validated. It’s also amazing to think that we have a team of ten people now, having started as me by myself with one idea and a draft of a business plan – it seems crazy, but definitely very rewarding!

What has been the most challenging moment of your journey so far?

Well, that’s impossible to answer because there’s a new challenge every day! But that also means we are learning every day. It’s so hard to pinpoint one but funnily enough I think it was at the EIT Health Patient Innovation Programme where it really dawned on me what a complex space we are operating in and how much regulation and red tape there is to navigate…. that was the moment of realisation for me. Having thought ‘okay I can create this tech and sell it to help people’ I suddenly realised what this would actually entail (and how much money it was going to take)!

Can you tell us a bit more about your experience with EIT Health?

It was years ago, and our clinical lead who has always been a bit of an adviser to me recommended I apply for the Patient Innovation Programme. I never thought I would get it to be honest because there were so many applicants (over a hundred) and I’m not technically a patient, so I wasn’t sure I’d be a good fit. Luckily, I discovered the programme did includes caregivers too, so I applied and did the interview… I was still convinced it was a total long shot, so I was absolutely amazed when I got in! It felt like such a huge achievement, especially because we didn’t even have a full solution at that point, we were just working on a minimum viable product (MVP). The programme was one week in Copenhagen and one week in Lisbon all fully funded, and it opened so many doors.

What was the biggest benefit of taking part in an EIT Health programme?

We had the opportunity to speak to nurses and doctors to validate the solution with them and learn from their insights. We grew a huge network and now we have friends in the healthcare space and the innovation space across Europe, so it’s opened up this huge community. As a tech salesperson with a predominantly commercial background I learnt so much about medical devices, EU regulations and other governance that I would never have had any exposure to otherwise. It’s not that I became an expert in those fields, but I was equipped with enough domain knowledge and understanding to have those conversations with the experts. I could see much clearer what needed to be done and what sort of strategy we needed to build.

How do you think we can get more women and girls into STEM subjects?

I think it needs addressing from a very young age. I remember back when I was at school, nobody ever even mentioned STEM subjects to me, let alone encouraged me or empowered me to pursue them. I probably thought I wouldn’t be able to do it or wouldn’t be smart enough. Recently I was giving a talk at Trinity College to girls in secondary school about careers in STEM and I think we just didn’t have those kinds of role models at the time. It’s important to know there are so many different roles for different people, you don’t need to be the computer scientist or the developer, but there’s space for everyone in this field. So, I think a big part of it is talking to young girls and giving them tangible examples and opportunities like courses or training where they can pursue STEM pathways.

What is the one piece of advice you would give to other innovators in the healthcare space who want to follow a similar pathway as you?

Oh wow, there's so much advice. I’d say the main one is just keep going. It’s not going to be an overnight success, you’re not going to get traction immediately, and there will be points where you absolutely want to give up. I had a few moments where I thought ‘what am I doing this for? It’s too hard’. If you just keep going, something good will eventually happen, you’ll always find a way to make it work. Everything can be a success, you just have to figure it out and be willing to pivot when you need to.

Is there anything specifical that you are looking for across the Innovators Community that readers should know about?

As I mentioned, we are about to kick off our fundraising. We are going to be spinning out at the end of February and trying to scale across the US so I’m focusing on my investor raise for now and if there’s anybody who thinks they would be a good fit for that, please reach out to me!

Follow Amethyst Care to stay updated with their journey!

Website: amethystcare.ie
LinkedIn: Rebecca McManus
Email: [email protected] 

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