Our story
Born at an AgeTech hackathon in San Francisco
Mathilda started as a 48-hour project at an AgeTech hackathon in San Francisco. A small team of engineers, designers and caregivers asked a simple question: what would it take to help our parents age at home — without putting cameras in every room?
The problem
One in four adults over 65 falls every year. Most existing solutions are either invasive (cameras and microphones), reactive (a pendant pressed after the fact), or both. Families want presence, not surveillance.
The mat
We prototyped a soft floor mat with embedded pressure sensing and on-device edge computing. It detects falls in real time, calls your "village" of trusted contacts, and escalates to emergency services only if no one responds. No cameras. No cloud streaming of raw sensor data.
Today
Mathilda is now a small company building a family of smart textiles — rugs, runners, bath mats and blankets — that quietly keep an eye on the people you love. We're still based in San Francisco, and still building with the same hackathon spirit.