Richmond senior services startup Naborforce is expanding again, this time into the North Carolina cities of Raleigh and Charlotte.
It’s actually a return to both markets for founder and CEO Paige Wilson’s startup, which expanded into those cities in 2021 but later pulled back. It has since pushed into other markets like Atlanta and Northern Virginia.
The company provides 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. Clients or families must set up accounts to book help from the company’s nabor network, a process that only takes a few minutes.
NaborForce currently operates in eight other markets in four states — Richmond, Charlottesville, the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area and across Northern Virginia, Bethesda-Chevy Chase in Maryland, Atlanta, Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas.
"North Carolina, like most of the country, is growing older and families are under increasing pressure to help out their older relatives and loved ones," Wilson said in a statement. "The Naborforce solution harnesses the strength of local communities by dispatching our network of 'good Nabors' on demand to provide a neighborly hand as needed so older adults may lead social, active and joyous lives."
The company said it is hosting learning sessions about its services this week in Raleigh and Charlotte.
Wilson told us in 2023 her company had grown 300% each of the previous two years, a clip quick enough to necessitate its move to a new office in Scott’s Addition. She told us at the time the company has had strong margins since its launch, but over the next few years it must become a profitable business.
“There is the difference of success as a product and success as a business,” she said at the time. “You have to be able to grow it and scale it and ultimately be profitable.”
Naborforce has raised $12.3 million in funding since its founding in 2018, according to Crunchbase. That includes a $9 million Series A round in 2022 led by Palo Alto, California’s Translink Capital.
Last year, it launched a “golden intern” program for three or four active retirees to receive paid internships at its home office in Richmond.
