SuperCarers
An online platform helping families to find trusted carers living in their local area.
- Location
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London,
United Kingdom
Categories: Healthcare Digital B2C
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Investment
sought: - £500,002
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Equity
offered: - 12.45%
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Investment
amount: - £1,079,495
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Valuation
(pre-money): - £3,515,613
Idea
Introduction
SuperCarers is an online platform helping families to find trusted local carers. We use technology to match families with the perfect SuperCarer and give them the tools to manage the care directly. We are on a mission to disrupt the UK’s archaic, expensive and inefficient care system.
What was our inspiration?
SuperCarers was founded by brothers Adam and Daniel Pike. Adam and Daniel’s mother was the primary carer for their grandma but struggled to balance this responsibility with work and family life. Eventually, their grandma went into residential care where her health and happiness deteriorated rapidly.
Why are we different?
We are using technology to improve the lives of older people, their families and their carers. SuperCarers can earn significantly more than the industry average and so we attract and retain the best. We look for compassion and kindness in all our SuperCarers, as well as putting them through strict background checks.
We are backed by leading health and technology investors including JamJar Investments, the innocent drinks founders private investment fund. They invest in high growth consumer brands and their portfolio includes Deliveroo, Graze and Dojo.
"From our experience at Innocent drinks, we understand how important it is to develop a brand that connects with consumers. There is a rapidly growing consumer need for care and the founders Adam and Daniel genuinely understand the sensitivities and complexities necessary to deliver a great experience for families, older people and carers.” Jon Wright, a founder of Innocent drinks and JamJar Partner.
Intended impact
Problem
The UK’s care system is at breaking point. Families find it hard to find and pay for care, while carers struggle to make a living.
Today, nearly 600,000 people over-85 live alone and by 2032 this is expected to increase to 1.4m. Today, 2m elderly people have a care related need but less than half get any support. There are currently 3.8m people over 65 who live alone.
The NHS and Local Authorities are struggling with an ageing population. In 2013 alone, elderly patients spent an extra 833,000 days in hospital due to lack of home care provision.
Impact
SuperCarers is already having an impact on our three key audiences:
1) Improving the wellbeing of older people - our elderly clients are cared for by consistent, qualified and trusted carers.
2) Improving the wellbeing of families - we alleviate the strain felt by families who have the responsibility of finding quality and affordable care.
3) Improving the livelihoods of carers - by connecting carers directly with customers, without agency middlemen, the Carer earns the majority of what their client pays, leading to a more transparent, consistent and better quality service.
Substantial accomplishments to date
Performance
We have outperformed gross and net revenue targets that were set at our seed round in September 2015. We have more than doubled revenues since May 2016.*
Strategic
We are backed by the founders of Innocent Smoothie via their JamJar Investment Fund. Their portfolio includes Deliveroo, Babylon Health and Graze. Other strategic investors include Sir Tom Hughes-Hallett, the former CEO of Marie Curie and current Chairman of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, and Paul Jakimciw the Managing Partner of Albion London, the creative business partner to Skype, Betfair and Zoopla.
Brand
We have been featured in the Sunday Times, City AM, Huffington Post and on BBC London News and Sky News. We are a winner of the Big Venture Challenge, supported by the Big Lottery Fund and UnLtd Foundation.
Customer Success
We are rated excellent by our customers on TrustPilot.
Team Advisors
We are advised by the former Strategy Director of the Care Quality Commission, Minister of State for Care and the Director of Digital for the NHS.
*Source; Management Accounts
Monetisation strategy
SuperCarers revenue model is simple: a flat 20% commission on each hour of care purchased through our platform.
In the future, there are opportunities for add-on services, such as a marketplace for dementia products.
Use of proceeds
We will use proceeds to invest in:
Product
We will be investing in our platform, to ensure that it can support the needs of the business as we aim to scale to thousands of customers and carers. In particular, we want customers and carers to manage more of their care through our app and get real time information on their loved ones.
Marketing
We focused proceeds from our seed round on testing multiple acquisition channels. We will now significantly increase marketing spend on the digital and offline channels that are beginning to work effectively for us.
People
We will be hiring capability across our technology, partnerships, marketing and customer services functions.
This round of investment is intended to accelerate us to Series A in 2017.
Please note that the Company has a director loan worth £38,050. None of the funds will be used to finance this loan and it is not repayable until a future exit.
Market
Target market
Our proposition is focused on two services: (1) Providing companionship and home help: there are currently 3.8m people over 65 who live alone, and (2) Providing care and support: there are 2m older people who have an identified care related need. According to official estimates, over the next 15 years, the number of elderly people who are isolated and in need of care will double.
Our proposition is currently focused on private payers, 150,000 people who pay for their own care and is estimated to be worth £1.4bn. This is expected to grow by 60% by 2030. We believe that the size of the market is underestimated because it does not account for unofficial figures.
In 12 months time, we expect our proposition to broaden to service people who have care paid for by the State. Currently, 500,000 receive personal budgets from the local authority, estimated to be worth £3.1bn.
In 12 months time, we expect to be live in three further European cities.
Characteristics of target market
There are two key markets:
(1) Private Market - 150,000 people pay for their own care, estimated size of £1.4bn.
(2) Public Market - 500,000 people receive personal budgets from their local authority, estimated market size of £3.1bn.
There are some interesting trends to note:
1. Size of the private market - The government has delayed the new “care cap” and so if you have over £23,250 of assets, excluding your home, you will pay for your own care. Therefore, without the support of the State more people will need to fund care privately.
2. Behaviour of publicly-funded "consumers" - local authorities are now obligated to give people the option of a direct payment. As a consequence, people will be able to choose where to spend their care pounds and this can be spent through services like SuperCarers.com, rather than traditional agencies.
Marketing strategy
We are utilising a range of channels to reach our target users and build awareness of our brand and service:
1. Referral programme, individuals – for each new user that signs up, the referrer and referee both receive a credit towards their care.
2. Online marketing – we market to customers via Google AdWords and Facebook where we are able to target our ads at our targeted demographic, 45 to 55 year old women.
3. PR - we have been featured on BBC London News, Sky News and featured in the Sunday Times and Huffington Post. We find that our story and the people who are backing us is compelling for news outlets.
4. Community Engagement - we regular engage with discussion forums to provide support and assistance to people looking for care.
5. Offline marketing - we market our services via flier drops, amongst other offline activities.
Competition strategy
The adult social care market is mature with over 6,000 domiciliary care agencies registered with the CQC. It is an extremely fragmented market with the largest agency controlling about 5% of the total market.
The most prominent agencies could pose a competitive threat, such as Allied Healthcare. However, the industry is very archaic in it's use of technology and we believe this gives us the perfect opportunity to seize market share and grow quickly.
Ultimately, we believe SuperCarers offers a strong value proposition to customers and carers. By connecting families and carers directly, we can share the saving in overhead between customers and carers.
The most advanced player in ‘digital care’ is HomeHero, a US-based company, launched in 2013, who offer a matchmaking, vetting and recruitment service for seniors to find carers. They are currently in a couple of US states and plan to expand their services across the US.