San Francisco-based home-care technology company Honor has wrapped up a $140 million Series D funding round. Announced yesterday, the raise was headed by Baillie Gifford, as well as funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates. Also joining was new backer Rock Springs, and prior investors Prosus Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, and 8VC.
This now brings the company's lifetime raise to $255 million.
WHAT IT DOES
Honor partners with home or senior care agencies to build its pool of providers. Organizations that join the Honor Care Network maintain their independence, but gain access to the company's tech platform that handles back-office operations such as recruitment, training, scheduling, payroll and performance-monitoring for their caregiver staff. The company also lends partners a hand with their digital marketing and the training of their sales teams.
Caregivers who join Honor to work full time or part time as "Care Pros" perform a range of nonmedical home-care tasks such as meal prep, bathing, medication dispensing or physical therapy exercise support, but are expected to have at least six months of paid caregiving experience to qualify.
These caregivers receive access to the company's app, which they can use to view and apply to individual jobs. The tool allows them to easily review information about their clients, write down and save notes for future visits with that client, and view any feedback they receive.
Founded in 2014, Honor launched the Honor Care Network in 2017, and now says that it has more than 40 home-care agency partners and "thousands" of Care Pros within its network of providers.
WHAT IT'S FOR
Seth Sternberg, CEO and cofounder of Honor, said in the announcement that these new funds allow the company "to expand more rapidly into new markets and further invest in our care delivery platform to provide the best personalized care experience for our clients and their families as well as better employment opportunities for Honor's Care Professionals."
MARKET SNAPSHOT
Whether through staffing, supplying or coordinating, tech platforms have been lending support to the home-care market. The beginning of the year saw a Series A round for Gento, a platform that matches care professionals with post-acute-care providers, including home-health agencies and skilled nursing groups. Shortly after, Tomorrow Health launched a tool that gives individuals a personalized look at what home-health products will cost them and helps them fill out relevant insurance claims.
The tech-enabled home-care startup scene was a bit more tumultuous in years prior, however. San Francisco-based HomeHero kicked off 2017 by throwing in the towel, while Hometeam rearranged its leadership roster amid a shift from a consumer payment business model to one favoring payer reimbursement.
ON THE RECORD
"Honor has demonstrated their ability to leverage technology to elevate and expand services to older adults who want to remain in their homes and to improve conditions for home care aides," Baillie Gifford's Anika Penn said in a statement. "We are excited to partner with the team as they scale up and drive improvement throughout the ecosystem of this $30 billion industry."
