A Newton-based startup is bringing on new investors to expand its senior care services.
MeetCaregivers announced last week an investment of over $1 million led by MassMutual with funding from 37Angels, Golden Seeds, TiE-Boston Angels, Kachuwa Impact and other investors, said Florence Furaha, CEO and co-founder of MeetCaregivers. Furaha declined to provide an exact amount.
MeetCaregivers previously raised close to $300,000 in smaller funding rounds, Furaha said.
The startup also announced that Travis McCready, a member of MM Catalyst Fund's investment committee, and Brian Mac Mahon, founder and managing director of Expert DOJO, were joining its board of directors.
“The reason we founded the company is to enable millions of seniors to continue to age at home as long as possible,” Furaha said. “Our goal is to create a platform that made the process easier for the family. Many times, seniors end up in nursing homes because the family cannot manage to care for them at home anymore.”
Co-founders Ritah Nakandi and Furaha met while working as caregivers for older adults and patients with health challenges. Furaha said they saw families struggling to care for their relatives without outside support, while also not knowing where to find these resources. Furaha and Nakandi started MeetCaregivers five years ago to make the caregiving process less stressful and time consuming for families.
MeetCaregiver’s primary service is matching seniors with licensed caregivers based on criteria like care needs, interests, personality and schedule. The startup has a roster of more than 10,000 home health aides, certified nurse assistants and licensed practical nurses that serve clients in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Furaha said they are in the process of expanding services to New Hampshire and New York.
The matching process is 70% automated and 30% manual, according to Furaha. A portion of this latest funding will go toward advancing MeetCaregivers’ technology to fully automate this process.
Furaha said this personalized matching process creates a lower turnover rate among caregivers, saving money and frustration for families, providers and the health care system. MeetCaregivers’ turnover rate is less than 30%, and the industry average is 82% according to Furaha.
“[The industry turnover rate] is terrible. It means seniors are constantly assigned different providers on a daily basis or weekly basis and that really ends up affecting the quality of care for them,” she said. “It can certainly become very confusing, especially if you have a senior that has Alzheimer’s or dementia.”
Caregivers are also required to keep digital records of their visits with seniors, so MeetCaregivers and the senior’s family are always up to date on their care.
“We can track what’s going on with the seniors and what type of care the caregiver is providing, and we can all communicate through the care tracking system,” Furaha said. “We’re not there physically, but we know what’s happening at any given time with each senior that we work with.”
MeetCaregivers expanded its services during the Covid-19 pandemic. Its website added a marketplace so seniors could purchase things like PPE and mobility supplies without leaving home. MeetCaregivers also opened its caregiver matching platform to nursing homes and assisted living residences who were experiencing staffing shortages. Earlier this year, the startup partnered with CIC-Health to assist with Covid-19 testing at more than 100 public schools.
Furaha said the latest funding will help MeetCaregivers expand its services into new states, more fully automate its caregiver matching platform, invest in marketing the business and increase its partnerships with health care organizations and state programs serving seniors.
This new funding also means that MeetCaregivers has joined a small contingent of Black women-owned companies with significant venture funding. Only 93 Black women nationally raised at least $1 million in outside funding last year, according to Project Diane. That number is up from 34 Black women in 2018.
“Fundraising is certainly not easy for any company, but the reality is it’s even more difficult for minority founders and female founders,” Furaha said. “I think there’s a lot now happening in Boston around making sure there is more funding available for female and minority founders. My hope is that we will continue to see more of that because it needs to happen.”
— Hannah Green is an ACBJ business reporting intern
