A Danish company that developed an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant for nurses has received over $5m in funding to help address staff shortages across the healthcare industry.

The round of funding was led by Plural VC with contributions from a number of investors.

“In line with Plural’s ambition to solve hard problems, we see huge potential for Teton.ai as a European-founded company building an AI-assisted technology platform to support nurses to provide better patient care,” said Taavet Hinrikus, who worked with Plural Platform to lead the funding round.

“Teton’s mission is vital and we are thrilled to be working closely with Mikkel, Esben and the team,” he added.

Teton.ai have developed an AI system that’s able to track the sleep of patients, deliver bed sore and ulcer warnings, send mobilisation reminders and document all of the patients activity.

According to the company, early results show that it could remove 25% of the workload nurses face during night shifts.

Mikkel Wad Thorsen, co-founder and CEO of Teton.ai told Verdict: “Countries across the world are facing problems with staff shortages in both hospitals and the wider care sector.’

“Our AI solution, which integrates privacy into the design, gives nurses more time to care for patients and residents without burdening their workload,” he continues.

The AI assistant tested hospital data sets as well as feedback from nurses to provide the right support for clinicians facing high volumes of work.

Analysis occurs within a closed system to ensure patient confidentiality and privacy, and no personal data is uploaded to a central server.

Growing demand from a global ageing population continues to add pressure to the healthcare industry, and AI development like Teton.ai are proving a common solution.

“There are currently over 100 companies that are applying AI algorithms and predictive analytics to healthcare; many of these companies are startups, and their numbers increase each year,” research firm GlobalData said.