SimCare

What do they actually do

SimCare provides a web platform where students and clinicians practice clinical conversations with AI patients. Learners speak via live audio, the system records the session, generates a transcript and an annotated transcript with tagged skills, and returns automated feedback and scores for instructor review. The company advertises a library of 500+ counselor-designed cases and live, real‑time sessions with mic-on and captions; recent demos show animated avatars with gestures and reactions homepage, annotated transcript docs, moving avatars demo.

SimCare also offers Field Experience (FieldX), a practicum/internship management tool for tracking hours, placements, supervisor sign‑offs, evaluations and accreditation exports (including CACREP alignment) Field Experience. The company reports adoption by counseling programs and advertises “15k+ students joined” and placement in 70+ programs; YC materials cite early pilots with universities and early revenue traction homepage, YC company page.

Who are their target customer(s)

• Counseling program director / department chair: Needs to scale practice opportunities and evidence outcomes for accreditors, but standardized patients and practicum coordination are costly and slow. Seeks simpler hour tracking, placement management, and exportable reports Field Experience.
• Clinical-skills instructor / course faculty: Has too many recorded role‑plays to review and not enough time to give consistent feedback. Wants transcripts, tagged moments, and automated scoring to reduce grading load annotated transcript docs.
• Telehealth/therapy employer or hospital training manager: Must onboard and assess many clinicians with limited supervision capacity and without risking patient safety. Needs scalable simulations and competency checks for enterprise training YC company page.
• Students and practicum interns: Get limited live-client exposure and uneven feedback. Want on‑demand, realistic practice with diverse client profiles and clear, repeatable feedback loops homepage.
• Accreditation/practicum coordinator or supervisor: Manual hour tracking, sign‑offs, and accreditation exports are fragmented across spreadsheets and emails. Needs centralized tracking and exportable evaluation data Field Experience.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Convert existing pilots into paid, program‑wide accounts by running semester pilots that bundle FieldX setup, faculty training, and demos of annotated transcripts/scoring to show grading-time savings and CACREP exports in practice Field Experience, annotated transcript docs, YC page.
• First 50: Scale the pilot playbook via faculty champions and conference talks. Offer turnkey LMS/gradebook integration and onboarding packages to minimize IT friction and accelerate departmental adoption annotated transcript docs, Field Experience.
• First 100: Pursue departments, hospitals, and telehealth employers with targeted enterprise pilots emphasizing verified hours, supervisor sign‑offs, and accreditation exports, plus integration/implementation services. Leverage published outcomes and converted deployments to win larger contracts YC page, Field Experience.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

SimCare’s closest near‑term market is healthcare/medical simulation, estimated at about $1.65B worldwide in 2024 Grand View Research. Counseling is the current beachhead, with 950+ CACREP‑accredited U.S. programs and ~72k enrolled students in 2023 CACREP 2023 Vital Statistics.

Bottom-up calculation:

Illustrative near‑term SAM for U.S. counseling: ~951 programs × 40% adoption × $20k average annual contract ≈ ~$7.6M. Alternatively, seat-based: ~72k students × $150 per learner per year ≈ ~$10.8M CACREP 2023 Vital Statistics.

Assumptions:

• Focus on U.S. CACREP programs for initial SAM; international and other professions excluded.
• Average ACV ~$20k per program or ~$150 per active student per year, inclusive of support and integrations.
• 40% near‑term penetration achievable via pilots, faculty champions, and accreditation-driven needs.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Kognito: Role‑play virtual patients and conversation simulations used by universities and health systems for behavioral‑health training; overlaps on scalable counseling communication practice Kognito.
• Shadow Health (Elsevier): Virtual patient experiences and assessments for nursing and health‑professional programs with instructor dashboards and analytics; competes where validated encounters and analytics matter Shadow Health.
• Mursion: Avatar‑based simulations (human‑in‑the‑loop + AI) for soft‑skills and healthcare scenarios; competes on high‑fidelity interpersonal practice for enterprise training Mursion.
• Exxat: Clinical/experiential education management for placements, timesheets, compliance, and accreditation; overlaps directly with SimCare’s Field Experience tooling Exxat.
• Laerdal SimCapture: Enterprise simulation capture and debriefing platform for medical/nursing schools and hospitals; competes on session recording, annotation, and institutional reporting SimCapture.