Let’s talk about something that we don’t talk about enough: caring for aging family members is hard, complicated, expensive, and scary.
It often comes on suddenly, spurred by a “trigger event” kicking off a cascade of high pressure, urgent, and potentially life altering decisions with immediate and downstream impacts on our finances and health. With individuals unprepared for this; we wanted to seek out founders that were preparing to build something big.
Whether the trigger event is a fall, an injury, a stroke, heart attack, the physical space in which the aging parent is living will quickly come into focus as a top priority in need of address.
90% of Seniors report that they wish to age in place. There are 31 million households owned by people 65 years old or older. However, only an estimated 1 in 10 homes is prepared for aging.
43 million Americans are on this journey with their loved ones. We are labeled as generation “S” — the Sandwich Generation — caring not only for our aging parents, but also our children. We are in midst of our careers, yet the demands of our “other job” are ever present.
All too frequently, caregivers respond to these demands by either rushing to move the aging relative out of their home or recruit expensive external care into their home. Either way, the choices usually strain caregiver finances, and data has shown a deterioration in the physical and mental health of both caregiver and the aging senior.
What if there was a more thoughtful and modest way to go about the caregiver journey that was beneficial for all parties involved? What if a new approach aimed to both reduce costs to the healthcare and insurance industries, while also softening the financial impact borne by caregivers and their families?
Ruby is a new business that helps caregivers of aging parents navigate the challenges of aging in place. When a senior experiences an event or injury in their home — or ideally, prior to such an event — Ruby works to help that aging senior remain in their own house while also providing peace of mind for a caregiver.
Long-term, Ruby will be the hub for aging, serving as the concierge for caregivers when they need assistance as they traverse the journey from physical space to financial products and beyond, all the while amassing a unique and proprietary data set for the healthcare and insurance industries to build upon.
Leading the effort to make the caregiver journey more approachable and lessen the financial and health hardships involved is Keith Cowing, the CEO of Ruby. SixThirty is excited to back Keith in his vision to bring a tech-enabled caregiver support platform to the market. Investing alongside SixThirty in Ruby’s first round of financing is 25madison, a venture studio based in New York, and Claritas Health Ventures, the VC effort of a healthcare focused private investment firm based in Nashville. Strategic angels from the enterprise technology, financial services, and venture capital industries also participated in the round.
We are excited to work alongside Keith and his team at Ruby to make this new solution available to all that need it.
