Richmond senior services startup Naborforce survived Covid-19 and is ready to test its model in four new markets by the end of the year, according to founder and CEO Paige Wilson. The company hopes to roll out in 10 new markets next year.
Naborforce offers a tech-based platform that links aging adults to a network of "nabors" for social companionship, engagement and on-demand support with errands, transportation, help around the house and other tasks. Each companion is vetted to ensure safety and quality. The companions are usually people over 55 and think of the work as more like volunteering than a job, according to Wilson.
She said the company has been working to build out a platform and test a locally based model in cities and neighborhoods in Virginia, Maryland, D.C. and Georgia. For the model, a coordinator is hired in each community and builds out the team.
“I call that rinse and repeat,” Wilson said. “Sometime over the next few months, we're going to either say, ‘You know, we've got this rinse and repeat nailed down and now we can move much quicker across the country.' Or we may learn that we don't have to do geographic rollouts and we can launch nationally.”
The company has booked around 80,000 hours of service and has 17 employees, of which about 60% are based in Richmond. Wilson said the company has grown 400% over the last 12 months. She declined to reveal revenue.
The journey has not been easy. The company started in 2018 and gained some traction before Covid lockdowns and fear among the elderly created real challenges. People did not want companions in their homes because they were worried about getting sick.
“Revenue dropped 90% during first two months of Covid," Wilson said.
Over time, that changed. People became less fearful, and families needed help caring for aging family members.
“People realized the importance of human connections,” Wilson said.
The company’s advantage, Wilson said, is that it is solving a real problem. The population is aging, and families are often disbursed across the country. At the same time, aging baby boomers are more interested in aging in place than spending years at a nursing facility. That means Naborforce provides are a service that people really desire.
“We have nothing to do with health care,” Wilson said. “It's direct to consumer. Just like you would hire a TaskRabbit person to come hang a TV through a platform. With us, you would get connected to a neighbor who can come over and help you clean or take things to Goodwill or make you a meal or take you to the beauty parlor or out to lunch.”
The challenge has been building out the technology. Like other gig-based platforms, Naborforce has a lot of small transactions. Wilson said the company has worked to build out a platform that schedules the services and records the transitions.
That process is being helped by the completion of a $9 million funding round over the summer. The new round was led by Palo Alto, California’s Translink Capital and included participation from existing investors Claritas Capital of Nashville, Tennessee; Houston’s The Artemis Fund; and Boulder, Colorado’s Techstars. Prior to the Series A round, Naborforce had raised $3.3 million, according to Crunchbase.
“A big piece of the funding will go toward continued investment in technology, because we are a platform, just like Uber is a platform,” Wilson said. “So, it's all driven by technology, because we are on demand and a one-hour minimum. There are tons of tiny transactions. This is not something you can have a dispatcher looking at people's schedules and booking them.”
Wilson is proud that, despite the challenges of the last two years, Naborforce has stuck to its original vision. The company wants to help improve people’s lives and make human connections.
“We've made plenty of mistakes along the way, but what we're doing today is exactly what we said we were going to do from day one,” Wilson said.
