Health and Human Services
New Venture Provides Peace of Mind and Proactive Services for Retirees Living Independently
Location: select regions around the United States
Status: Active
Americans spend upwards of $151B each year to support independent living – including $42.6B on meals, home and personal care, home repair, and transportation. Faced with an aging Baby Boomer population, more retirees wanting to live independently, and a shrinking workforce, the aging services sector needs new tools to address changing customer preferences and to support healthy, independent living for millions of older Americans.
Quantified Ventures partnered with top executives from 13 of the largest non-profit senior living providers, representing diverse geographic reach and eldercare services, to develop a solution.
That solution is Dorvie, a company that leverages technology and strategic partnerships to deliver predictable and proactive concierge-based amenities – including home services, local experiences, and wellness offerings – to people wherever they call home. Dorvie provides peace of mind and support for retirees and their loved ones as they navigate independent living.
Problem
There are 54 million Americans age 65 or older, and 90% of them prefer to continue living in their own homes instead of moving into a senior living community.
This means foregoing the expertise and services that come with those communities and, instead, coordinating daily needs like home maintenance, transportation, and meal preparation on their own through a potpourri of providers. This is time consuming, labor intensive, and potentially expensive.
By the same token, aging services providers must adapt to changing target customer preferences and needs, all in the face of workforce shortages.
Approach
A solution to this challenge emerged from the Quantified Ventures Solution Studio where leaders embark on a rigorous process to segment the problem, design/select scalable solutions, capitalize the initiative, and ultimately bring the solution to market.
The first step was understanding the market forces at play – learning from retirees, their families, and service providers. Our team did this by interacting with more than 1,500 people to shape a vision for a high-tech and high-touch platform that delivers predictable and proactive services to people wherever they call home.
After a rigorous process incorporating market research, data analytics, user discovery, prototype development, and concept vetting with sector experts, the Dorvie solution emerged.
Actually building this concierge-based solution and bringing it to market, though, required a standalone company staffed by a dedicated team – all of which would need seed funding.
Solution
In partnership with a group of aging services providers, Quantified Ventures helped to raise $2.6M in seed funding to launch this startup to revolutionize aging services for independent living.
In this case, leaders of a group of non-profit senior care organizations designed and ultimately provided seed funding to hire a Dorvie team with backgrounds in management, technology, operations, and customer service to launch and grow this valuable service to provide peace of mind for those aging in place and their loved ones.
More broadly, this solution highlights the opportunity presented by pairing sector leaders who face an issue in their market with Quantified Ventures’ expertise as a venture and solution catalyst.