As our population ages, more and more of us must grapple with the question: What’s the best way to take care of Mom and Dad? One Dallas area medtech startup says it can help us wade through the tens of thousands of available options.
Michael Walsh, co-founder and CEO of Cariloop, a healthtech startup based in the Dallas suburb of Richardson, TX, says it has created a technological “marriage of Match.com and Expedia for the senior space.”
The site has compiled a database from state regulatory bodies of senior care providers—from adult care to long-term residential facilities—that customers can peruse through a question-and-answer survey that whittles down the options by need. For example, you start out by indicating whether the services are for yourself or a family member. You go through the survey, answering whether the person wants to be in a facility or cared for at home, and whether the person is paying through government programs, private money, or both.
As you make these choices, Cariloop is adjusting the list of care providers that best meet your needs, Walsh says. “We have updated the user experience with pricing, reviews, and photos, like you would have when you’re looking for a hotel,” he added. “We have brought those experiences—that you have in other areas of your life—into healthcare.”
Cariloop went live in March and this week raised $400,000 in seed money in a round led by Green Park & Golf Ventures, a Dallas investment firm, and Fort Worth, TX-based Corbett Capital.
So far, Cariloop has signed up 300 providers, a small fraction of the total of 9,500 senior care providers in Texas alone. But Walsh says that the funding will be used to make hires who will contact providers and beef up the database. “The more content we have, the better we can match,” he says.
Getting your head around the options available for senior care can be difficult. In 2012, about 58,500 paid, regulated long-term care services providers served about 8 million people in the United States, according to a Centers for Disease Control report released in January. Those services came from a variety of agencies, including adult daycare centers, home health agencies, hospices, nursing homes, and assisted living communities. And as the number of Americans needing such care grows—the CDC says that figure will rise from 15 million in 2000 to 27 million in 2050—targeting your best options will become even more important.
It’s a market that’s gotten plenty of other entrepreneurs’ attention as well. Among the most
