The number of individuals aged 65+ is projected to double from 703 million in 2019 to 1.5 billion globally by 2050. With this expected growth, Grand View Research predicts the home healthcare market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.9 percent between 2020 and 2027. With an aging baby boomer population who have more complex health needs, the need for a well-trained home care workforce will only continue to grow. As the demand for adequately trained home care workers grows in response to this trend, so will the need to ensure they have the highest quality training and resources to deliver the very best care to older adults.
Enter CareAcademy, an edtech startup that creates online training that empowers senior care professionals to deliver the highest caliber of service and improve the lives of older adults. To date, more than 110,000+ home care workers are learning and growing professionally through CareAcademy. Delivered through a proprietary curation platform that navigates licensure requirements in all 50 states, content needs down to individual caregivers, and text notification for employees, CareAcademy has certified 40000 caregivers throughout the US.
To meet the growing demands for home care workers, CareAcademy announced today that it has closed $9.5 million in funding to continue expanding the platform and help one million Americans reskill for healthcare work, particularly in light of COVID-19 and the growing aging population that seeks to age in place. The round, was led by Impact America Fund (IAF), brings the company’s total funding to more than $13 million.
Other investors in this round include IAF is joined by Rethink Impact, ReThink Education, Revolution Rise of the Rest, Wanxiang America Healthcare Investment, Techstars Ventures, Strada and ECMC. In conjunction with the funding, CareAcademy also announced that IAF Founder and General Partner Kesha Cash and Dr. Ivor Horn, former chief medical officer of Accolade Health, will join is Board of Directors.
Founded in 2013 by Helen Adeosun and Madhuri Reddy, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-base CareAcademy develops evidence-based online classes to help both professional and family caregivers provide excellent care at home. CareAcademy provides evidence-based online classes to help direct care workers provide excellent care and improve their lives at home. Coupled with its advanced reporting, portability, and training management dashboard, CareAcademy is an end-to-end, scalable training solution that transforms home care businesses into efficient industry leaders.
“We are thrilled to have a group of investors who see the untapped potential of direct care workers and who believe in CareAcademy to help unleash that opportunity in this critical time for healthcare,” said Helen Adeosun, co-founder and chief executive officer, CareAcademy.
“We started CareAcademy in 2016 with a simple idea: to empower caregivers to learn how to deliver the best care to older adults with the support, guidance, and compassion needed to improve their quality of life. We would then make it easy for caregivers to ‘upskill’ and continue their education over time so they could better serve clients as needs changed and advance their careers. Now more than ever, in the wake of COVID-19 there is a need to provide safe alternatives to facility based care. We’re preparing the next generation of one million direct care workers to meet the needs of older adults.”
Heidi Patel, managing partner, Rethink Impact: “COVID-19 has only accelerated the growing trend of the elderly and others wanting to age in place and receive care at home. CareAcademy fulfills a critical aspect of providing that care safely and effectively, while expanding economic opportunity for the majority female and immigrant careworker community. At Rethink Impact, we believe that the next generation of successful businesses will be at the forefront of healthcare innovation and there’s no one better positioned to lead that work than CareAcademy CEO and Harvard EdM, Helen Adeosun.”
