Senior care startup Honor donating $1 million in free care
SAN FRANCISCO—Although most tech innovations tend to skew towards younger audiences, Honor hopes to start a trend of tech companies focusing on the needs of seniors.
The Bay Area startup, which raised $20 million in funding and launched its beta program in April, leverages technology to connect seniors and caregivers more efficiently. On Monday, Honor CEO Seth Sternberg is expected to announce that he will allocate $1 million toward free care in 10 U.S. cities. Honor is currently available throughout the Bay Area, and details about other metro areas—and the free-care program—are coming soon, he says.
"Traditionally, there's been very little investment in the senior space, mainly due to this false assumption that seniors won't use tech," says Sternberg, speaking from Washington, D.C., where Monday he is addressing the White House Conference on Aging. "Hey, seniors use cars, that's technology."
Sternberg, who sold social media platform Meebo to Google in 2012, came up with the idea of Honor after "realizing that I didn't want my mother to have to leave her home, ever." He approached Marc Andreessen at Andreessen Horowitz and quickly landed $15 million from the venture capitalist, "who then kept emailing me ideas at 2 in the morning."
Other investors include Kapor Capital, Enjoy founder Ron Johnson, PayPal founder Max Levchin, Senator Bob Kerrey and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman.
"It took people who were willing to take a risk to make this happen," says Sternberg, who on Tuesday will meet with the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
He adds that Honor isn't a tech company as much as it is a service, somewhat in the vein that Uber has made the process of connecting drivers with riders seamless via tech.
"With most senior care services, if you're not willing to commit to at least three or four hours, you're out. But with us, you can hire someone for as little as an hour," he says. "Technology helps us optimize everything, from the ride time and distance of the care giver to the best qualifications necessary for a particular client. But unlike Uber, where you're not calling the same person back, our aim to connect people for a longterm relationship."