Longevity Investment Summit and Future of Longevity Demo Day Shines Light on $648 Billion Care Economy and Startups Poised to Bend the Curve on Care
Apr 03, 2023
Monday, April 3, 2023
Washington, D.C. – Today, the 13-week Techstars Future of Longevity Accelerator will conclude with a Longevity Investment Summit and Demo Day from 2:00-4:30pm ET at The Washington Press Club. The event will also be livestreamed.
This program is run in partnership with Pivotal Ventures, a company founded by Melinda French Gates to accelerate social progress in the United States. In addition to hearing short presentations from the 10 startup CEOs focusing on innovative solutions to address the unmet needs of older adults and their caregivers, the event will feature a Longevity Investor Panel featuring Esther Dyson (Founder, Wellville), Jenny Abramson (Founder and Managing Partner at Rethink Impact) and Nancy Brown (General Partner, Oak HC/FT), moderated by Erin Harkless Moore, Senior Director, Investments at Pivotal Ventures, as well as a Fireside Chat with Alexandra Drane (Co-Founder and CEO of ARCHANGELS) interviewed by Ken Stern, former CEO of NPR and Chair of The Longevity Project.
Adults aged 65 and older are one of the fastest-growing demographics in America, soon representing more than 1 in 5 Americans. The vast majority of adults want to age in place in their own homes, however 70 percent of Americans over 65 will need some amount of long term care support during retirement -- an expense not covered by Medicare. Long term care is a huge, unplanned financial burden for older adults, which often gets passed on to the adult children -- both financially and emotionally as they become the primary caregivers. Family caregivers in the U.S. provide an estimated $600 billion dollars in unpaid care each year, spending an average of 18 hours per week providing care. Nearly half of family caregivers forfeit their own financial security to address the immediate care needs of an aging loved one. What’s more, women comprise over 60 percent of these family caregivers. These are among the reasons Pivotal Ventures and Techstars launched this accelerator -- to shine a light on the care economy, worth $648 Billion dollars, roughly $100 Billion dollars more than the pharmaceutical industry.
"Innovation has transformed nearly every aspect of our lives, yet the products and services supporting how we age and how we care for our loved ones have remained largely stagnant,” said Jennifer Stybel, Caregiving Lead at Pivotal Ventures. "This accelerator is paving the way for new ideas to help solve age-old problems, including advancements in financial services, personalized care and aging in place. I’m proud that the companies in this year’s Techstars Future of Longevity Class will be part of the solution.”
The composition of this class demonstrates Techstars’ and Pivotal Ventures’ commitment to invest in diverse-led teams. Half of the CEOs are women and 80% are underrepresented in tech, based on gender, race, or age.
“We look for outstanding teams who have identified unique approaches to solving big problems,” said Keith Camhi, Managing Director of the Future of Longevity Accelerator. “Generally the best people to identify and solve these challenges are ones who are experiencing them first hand. Given the challenges of caregiving, this allows us to attract a wonderfully diverse group of founders. We cast a wide net, ran an equitable and inclusive application process, and then selected the most talented founders in the category to support. We’re delighted that the outcome included such diversity, proving once again that talent is equally distributed even though opportunity isn’t.”
Launched in 2020, the Future of Longevity Accelerator has emerged as the premier ecosystem for supporting early stage innovation in the category. The accelerator focuses on fostering innovative solutions to address the unmet needs of older adults and their caregivers with a specific focus this year on funding care, preventive health, solutions to allow older adults to remain independent at home and solutions to support both family and formal caregivers.
This class represents the third year of the accelerator. Each company in this year's 13-week program used their time to focus on building their products with empathy for the customer, solidifying their value propositions, identifying new channel opportunities, and refining the ability to tell their stories through their brands. The companies have engaged with over 140 mentors, formed deep relationships across the Techstars' and Pivotal Ventures’ networks, increased their traction, and mastered the ability to communicate their vision.
"Techstars truly boosted Keep Company to another level,” said Adrienne Prentice, CEO of Keep Company. “The vast network of experts, the actionable frameworks and meaningful support of the team and fellow co-founders provided us the clarity and confidence we need to maximize our impact. The industry focus on the emerging, but enormous, care economy delivered a level of insight that we have not found anywhere else. We are ready to tackle this market and support as many parents and caregivers as possible. And we are incredibly grateful to Techstars and Pivotal for the opportunity."
Learn more about the 10 companies below or by watching the livestream event.
Advosense
Advosense is developing intelligent care solutions for older adults to empower clinicians to know when, where and how to best care for patient needs. The Sensa system by Advosense is a digital solution to manage incontinence consisting of three parts: disposable sensing stickers, a bedside reader and an easy to use web application.
Cancer Mutual
Cancer Mutual provides free digital prevention and early detection tools, and offers users a simple and affordable insurance product that protects against financial risks associated with a cancer diagnosis.
Carefluent
For people looking for in-home care who struggle to find caregivers that are a good fit culturally, socially, and even speak the same language, Carefluent provides a platform that uses machine learning technology to deliver highly-personalized, culturally compatible matches.
Keep Company
Keep Company beats burnout through belonging. Their behavior-science based group coaching program creates connection and builds resilience for individual caregivers. For their employers, they close the feedback loop before the exit interview by providing data-driven and actionable insights that help them manage burnout and attrition risk.
Lotus Labs
Home to Smart Home in seconds. Lotus has developed a wearable ring that controls objects at home by pointing.
Penny Finance
Penny Finance is the first personalized and tech-powered financial mentor for women who don’t have access to a financial advisor – and crave easy, digestible financial education and know-how to increase cash flow today, and retire with wealth tomorrow.
REEV
REEV makes the first smart, patient-centric, robotic knee brace to expand the daily mobility of 50 million people with difficulty walking after strokes.
Savvly
Savvly is a Personal Pension Product that provides lump-sum payments for late-life financial security.
Tuktu
Tuktu is a community powered care network that uses technology to smartly match family members and friends looking to support their older loved ones (or themselves) with safe, friendly, inexpensive companions for non-medical needs like shopping, cleaning, cooking, and rides to appointments.
Zinnia
Zinnia provides an ever-growing library of videos delivered via mobile apps and connected TVs that make care easier and more meaningful. Our content supports and uplifts people living with dementia and improves the care experience.
Please follow the Techstars Future of Longevity Accelerator on LinkedIn and Twitter for news about our founders, mentors and upcoming program!
Contact Sarah Hippert at sarah.hippert@techstars.com for press inquiries.
About Techstars
Techstars invests in early-stage startups led by unstoppable entrepreneurs with transformative businesses. With 45+ accelerators worldwide, an unrivaled network of alumni, mentors, commercial partners, investors, and dedicated operating teams, Techstars supports entrepreneurs throughout their entire startup journey while helping to build thriving startup communities. Since 2006, we have invested in more than 4,400 portfolio companies, accelerating the growth of businesses including Chainalysis, Zipline, DataRobot, Alloy, and many, many more. www.techstars.com