Senior Care Revolution: 5 Startups Shaping Eldertech

We will get old one day — sad but true. The whole population is getting older drastically. The Administration of Aging report predicts the number of older people will be doubling since 2000 and reach 80.8 million residents aged 65 and older by 2040. 

Simultaneously, there is a workforce shortage of professionals providing care for senior citizens while the cost of such services is rising.

According to the LeadingAge Workforce Snap Poll, the lack of nursing home provider members represents 92%, while 70% of assisted living providers face the same issue. 

Luckily, more and more tech companies are working on improving this senior care problem. They create solutions for supporting older adults and taking care of their health. 

Let’s see what they’ve got!

Mon Ami stresses that it’s a women-founded and led startup launched in 2019. The company provides life-sustaining services for senior citizens and people with disabilities. 

Mon Ami tries to resolve the problem of human services databases by providing SaaS solutions strictly for aging and disability agencies. The all-in-one platform eases and accelerates workflows for senior services, allowing them to assist more seniors and monitor their well-being outcomes. 

The company’s significant goal is to save up to 60% of the time of aging and disability providers on paperwork. Thus, more and more customers will be able to get access to good services.

Here is how Mon Ami can digitize operations: 

1. Client database.

2.Case management. 

3. Evidence-based programs. 

4. Meals management. 

5. Volunteer management. 

6. Insights and reporting.

Founded in 2014, Mable was designed as a platform for older people or those with disabilities to find and hire support and care assistants. On this platform, people can simultaneously find and provide support for those in need.

That’s how Mable works:

1. You visit the platform and check the local support workers’ profiles. Setting up filters like hobbies or age to customize your search is easy.

2. Then you’ve got the short list of supporters and contact them on the Mable platform. Once you’ve decided and got a match, you book all the agreements immediately. 

3. It’s where your support journey starts. All your relationships and interactions with support workers are safeguarded by the Mable Trust & Safety Team.

Mable offers two types of aged care support based on government-funded programs — home care and residential aged care. In the first case, older adults live in their homes. Residential aged care means people need more or specific care that they can’t get at their place.

The US-based robotics company Labrador Systems was founded in 2017. It focuses on improving people’s lives and assisting older adults or people with health struggles with the help of robots. 

Labrador creates pragmatic yet supportive robots and apps to help people cope with daily things. Let’s look closer at one of the company’s products called Retriever.

Labrador Retriever is a robot that helps you move various large and small things. The company calls it ‘an extra pair of hands.’ Also, it’s connected to Alexa, enabling voice control. 

Paul Bernard, Director of the Alexa Fund, one of the leading investors:
“Labrador is advancing the state of the art in what it means to provide assistance to people aging and with mobility challenges.”

“They are addressing a significant problem in our society and have brought their decades of experience in consumer robotics to bear, delivering a product that will help empower people to live better lives.”

Heart disease is the main reason for the deaths of over 80% of people aged 65 and above.

The US-based startup Bodyport aims “to eliminate the leading cause of death worldwide — heart disease.” Their product is an advanced biomarker system embedded into user-friendly devices to get personalized health info from home. 

Bodyport Cardiac Scale is such a device. It identifies heart indicators via an individual’s feet and rapidly transmits the information to the medical care group. Thus, Bodyport bridges the gap between senior patients and their care teams for better medical services and health monitoring from a distance. 

Bodyport’s latest funding was raised in 2020 from a Series A round led by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), Playground Global and Initialized Capital.

Debbie Lin, Investor and Executive Director at Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF):
“We are very excited to work with the Bodyport team and to support an innovative technology that can develop new biomarkers in the cardiovascular space. Learning how the Bodyport technology could potentially complement pharmaceutical therapies for patients with various cardiovascular diseases is a tremendous opportunity.”

In the US, among adults aged over 65, one-third experience hearing loss. 

Founded in 2014, the Ava company developed an AI-powered platform for transcribing what people say. Ava works for individuals, inclusive and leading organizations, such as Nike, FedEx, Hilton, etc.

People can use Ava as a desktop version and as an app for iOS & Android. Any tool like Zoom, WhatsApp and others is suitable for conference calls. The captions instantly appear during the conversation. For more accuracy and corrections, Ava suggests adding a professional Scribe.

Thibault Duchemin, Co-founder & CEO:
“I think deaf and hard-of-hearing users ultimately choose the tools that serve them, and their entourage benefits from them. This is a virtuous circle!”