Amidst a global pandemic, there has been an increased focused on health care innovation.
Now, Dallas-based Cariloop, a patient caregiver support platform, announced closing on a $6 million Series A funding round led by local investment firm Patterson Thoma Family Office. Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, ACAP Health, KCRise Fund, MPK Equity Partners and Patrick McGee, along with other unnamed investors joined the round.
“Our team at Cariloop has always believed that no one should ever have to go through caregiving alone,” said Michael Walsh, CEO and co-founder at Cariloop, in a prepared statement. With this new round of financing completed, we can rapidly expand the coalition of employers and partners we work with and reach more caregivers and families in need of help”
The newest round of funding brings Cariloop’s total amount to $8.2 million, with previous backing on its Seed round coming from North Texas investors Health Wildcatters and Green Park & Golf Ventures. Launched in 2012 by co-founders Steven Theesfeld and Walsh, Cariloop’s cloud-based platform helps caregivers and families plan and manage long-term care of patients through device communication, data storage and on-demand access to health care professionals. The startup participated in the Health Wildcatters 2013 accelerator cohort.
Though it's relatively uncommon for a startup to find a lead investor in a family office, Colin Patrick, CFO at Patterson Thoma, which invested about $1 million, told the Dallas Morning News the pandemic was part of the reason the office decided to invest. He told the paper they decided to invest after seeing others “pull in their horns” due to Covid-19.
As part of the round, Patrick will be joining Cariloop’s board of directors.
In February, Cariloop announced a partnership to have its software added to benefits management platform Benefitfocus. And with the new funding, the company said it is looking to quadruple the number of people on its platform. To do this, Cariloop said it is planning to use the round to make new hires, bringing its team from 30 to 60 in the next year and a half. It is also planning to add new tools and services to its platform.
“Cariloop helps ordinary people manage the extraordinarily complicated and stressful reality of caregiving for family members,” said Anna Mason, a partner at Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, in a prepared statement. “While this issue is suddenly at the forefront for millions of Americans and tens of thousands of businesses, the writing has long been on the wall: a ballooning aging population, an increasingly complicated and costly healthcare system, and a tech-enabled “always-on” workforce mentality have collided in a way that increases human stress and decreases workforce productivity.”
