Jeet Singh and Joe Chung are the definitions of serial entrepreneurs.
They met at MIT in the early 80s and they've been doing business together since 1991, when they co-founded their first company, Art Technology Group (ATG). The e-commerce software company based in Cambridge went public on the Nasdaq in the late 1990s, along with many other high-tech firms. ATG ultimately caught the attention of Oracle, which acquired it in 2010 for $1 billion.
The list of Singh and Chung's entrepreneurial adventures could go on and on, including social marketing firm called Loopit (acquired by Nanigans, Inc.), retail intelligence firm ThirdChannel, Inc., and educational programs and products firm Winterline Global Education.
Today, the two business partners run Redstar Ventures, a venture foundry in One Kendall Square that identifies trends and emerging markets, then develops companies products and services accordingly.
The latest startup born inside Redstar Ventures is Kinto, an app that offers caregivers a set of digital tools to help them take care of their loved ones, but also to connect with people who had similar experiences. Kinto was selected as a finalist at the 2017 AARP Innovation@50+ LivePitch,a two-day pitch competition for emerging startups in the health and financial technology sectors, which ended today in Mountain View, CA.
In an interview with BostInno, Singh explained that the idea for Kinto came out at Redstar Ventures following an analysis of the aging demographic: "A lot of people, when they look at the aging market, they look at the medical side, the financial side, but they don't necessarily look at the caregivers, especially the unpaid caregivers," Singh said. In other words: family members.
The goal for Kinto is providing a tool that helps caregivers. "We'd like to be kin to you," Singh said, explaining the name of the company.
The app works as a source of information on a variety of topics, including home safety, Medicare, healthy living and managing meds. But there are a lot of interactive tools that actively help caregivers. For example, once you downloaded the app, you can set up "care teams" and directly communicate with family members and other helpers. Users are encouraged to post comments, share their experiences and interact with each other in every section of the app.
One of the sections of Kinto, called "Planning for the End" could be considered a little bit intense, but Singh disagrees. "These are issues that all the caregivers are facing immediately, and so part of what we're trying to do is actually help them navigate the questions. There are so many things to think about: Does the parent have a will? What happens to property? What happens to legal things?"
Currently in a public beta test, Kinto is available for download on both iOS and Android.
