Birdie, a London-based AgeTech startup, has closed a €7m Series A.
The round was led by AXA and brings the startup’s total money raised since launching in 2017 to €9.5m.
Birdie seeks to disrupt the elderly care sector and transform the way in which society broaches ageing.
The company positions itself as a holistic ‘care companion’ platform, and aims to support older adults to live healthy and independent lives within the comfort of their own home.
“We believe the future of elderly care is at home. Care homes are too expensive for many families and often lack capacity. More importantly, older adults want and deserve to stay in the comfort of their own home,”commented Max Parmentier, CEO of Birdie.
“Increased budget cuts mean more caregivers are unable to continue their work; and that’s just the beginning, given that the number of dependent older adults is set to triple over the next twenty years. We found these problems across Europe, Asia and America, not just the UK. In other words, we’re currently facing a global societal crisis that is a ticking time bomb. And we need to address it urgently. At Birdie, we do not accept the status quo. We are the world’s first holistic platform that builds the right technology and service model to address these issues.”
Birdie was set up in July 2017 by Parmentier, who witnessed the decline of his grandfather’s health and well being after he was put into a care home.
Prior to Birdie, Parmentier worked at McKinsey and founded and scaled a global health e-marketplace. Incubated by the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the venture was funded and supported by Bill Gates and launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos two years ago.
Guillaume Borie, AXA Group CIO, said: “The pace of innovation in the care industry has not met market demand for quality care of senior adults. Birdie’s ambition is to become the alternative to care homes. Supporting effective and quality domiciliary care using technology will have a radically positive social impact on an elderly individual’s quality of life and that of their family. We think it will also have a wider positive economic impact on public health services that are currently floundering under the pressures of an ever-growing ageing population. Birdie has an impressive, exciting and scalable proposition that will change the way elderly home care is currently managed.”