In keeping with the broad definition of agetech, I defined several categories to enable easy navigation of the agetech startup ecosystem.
Many agetech commentators and influencers have created their own categories. While I have been inspired by them, I formed my own, simply because I found no categorisation to be resolutely perfect. Several had too many categories, which diminished their usefulness.
I am quite proud of the categories, because I have thought long and hard about what to include in one group and what to exclude. I hope you will find the four categories useful.
Health, Nutrition and an “Active Lifestyle”
The first step to living a good life comes by living a healthy life, which should, in turn, minimise the jeopardy of sickness, even though some illnesses are naturally unavoidable. This comes down to the powerful idea of “prevention,” which I grouped alongside prioritising nutrition.
Examples:
RetiSpec, a Canadian startup commercialising an eye test to detect Alzheimer’s.
NourishedRx, a platform that creates individualised food plans for elderly people.
Playtomic, Europe’s largest racket-sports app, which facilitates court bookings for paddle, tennis, and football, and enables players to connect through a social community.
Care, Love and Community
Care is one of the most obvious categories associated with agetech startups. These companies are focused on improving care in care homes, providing in-house care and offering at-home visits. And obviously, this makes sense, because better and more affordable care is a big challenge in most societies.
We have broadened the care category, however, to include community, family, and dating because we believe it is incredibly hard, and not very useful, to separate “formal” and “informal” care.
According to the National Institutes of Health, formal care refers to paid care provided by medical institutions or medically trained individuals, while informal care is unpaid care provided by family, close relatives, friends, and neighbours.
In a similar vein to the way a healthy life starts with nutrition and lifestyle, care can come in many guises before professional care is required; therefore, addressing the challenge of loneliness is hugely important.
Examples:
Pear Suite, a tech platform powering community health workers in the U.S.
Papa.com offers “Papa pals” - freelance helpers - to support elders and fight loneliness.
Klup, a popular app in the Netherlands, now launching in the UK, connects seniors and helps them get together to plan social activities.
Intuition Robotics, an Israeli startup, has developed an AI-powered robot, EliiQ, to fight loneliness and improve health routines in elderly people’s homes.
Independence, Finance, Jobs, Home and Safety
This category is all about the elderly being able to live without dependencies. This includes financial security, but can also refer to independence - for example, this can be in the form of a bathroom accessibility refurbishment. In some ways, this category is the opposite of the “care” category; but it’s like yin and yang. If care is about providing for our elderly, independence is about the elderly taking care of themselves. Elderly people want and deserve both: To be part of the whole picture and to be able to live independently.
Examples:
Maturious, an Australian employment platform fighting ageism in the workplace.
Nestimate, a retirement income management software tool for companies and employees.
Rest Less, a UK media group for 50+ with coverage of health, travel, jobs and dating.
Giving and Leaving
This goes beyond legacy and end-of-life planning. Here we have stretched the boundaries of the category. For example, generosity does not have to begin after one’s death. In fact, it can be non-material, as allowing elders to share their experiences and insights with younger people is of huge importance, and we should be finding ways to prioritise this more than we currently do.
Examples: