Funding to Drive Tech Company in ‘Enormous’ Caregiving Space
(Image courtesy of tend.ly)
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA group of well-known Hoosier entrepreneurs is backing a cloud software platform that helps loved ones communicate with caregivers and businesses to better track their operations. Indianapolis-based tend.ly has received a $1 million seed round of funding from investors including Mike Simmons, Scott McCorkle, Eric Tobias, Michael Browning and Indianapolis-based Elevate Ventures. The technology from Tendly LLC is billed as an all-in-one management app that streamlines tasks for service providers and family members such as payments and reimbursements, employee engagement, communication and documentation.
Chief Executive Officer Caitlin Coffman tells Inside INdiana Business the company will be widening its focus and beefing up marketing efforts as a result of the funding boost. "Right now, we’ve had most of our success in the early childhood education space," Coffman said. "We want — over the next six-to-twelve months to make that big push into the senior care market. We think that there is an amazing opportunity to provide that single source of truth for people as they are looking to better communicate with the people that are caring for the people that they love the most in their life."
Currently, Coffman says, tend.ly’s marketing team currently employs three and the infusion will help boost the company’s headcount to nine within the next couple of months. "The future of senior care and child care is rapid, real-time communication with loved ones. Parents want to know about the moments that matter. Our vision is to empower care providers with easy-to-use, mobile-based software that doesn’t increase the operational burden for the provider," she added. "We’re thrilled with our early progress and are eager to continue to expand our product roadmap and sales teams to accelerate our vision."
Coffman sees "enormous" room for growth in the care industry, which she sees is "ready for disruption." She says the industry is still very paper-driven when it comes to business processes. "The loved ones of the people being cared for, they do not have a great window into what’s happening with that person. We as a society have decided that we’re going to outsource the care of some of the people that we love the most, and those sometimes tend to be some of our most vulnerable populations when you’re talking about our seniors and you’re talking about our children," she said. Because of this and the "fractured" state of the market Coffman adds the market "is ready for someone to come in grab hold of that and be that all-in-one solution."
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In an interview in May, MomentPath Chief Executive Officer Caitlin Coffman told Inside INdiana Business the company will be widening its focus and beefing up marketing efforts as a result of the funding boost.