One Step Closer to Your Grandma Joining TikTok

This is The Startup Breakdown, the newsletter where we learn, laugh, and love startups. By joining this growing community of hundreds of future startup aficionados (think i spelled that right?), you're getting a beachside view of the ocean that is the startup and VC scene. This ain’t your grandpa’s newsletter, so prepare yourself for an inbox full of 4/20 jokes and Succession references.

Happy Monday, folks.

Missed you all the last couple of weeks.

I’ve been in the arena lately (had to, sorry), and I have some pretty exciting things to announce

I am joining infobot.ai (YC S23) where I’ll be running all things growth. We’re building the future of media through an AI-generated news platform that can cover even the most niche of topics that trad media simply can’t.

I was incredibly impressed with the team, and I’m even more thrilled about the vision. I’ll make sure to keep you guys updated, but in the meantime, feel free to reach out to let me know your thoughts on the site, and maybe create a channel or two while you’re at it. Any problems/feedback, lmk.

Also, this means that I’ll be moving out to The Bay soon. As in, tomorrow.

If you’re in the area and wanna grab coffee or something, feel free to reach out.

Now, as for what this means for The Startup Breakdown, I’ve been sorta struggling with that question myself. I want to keep bringing you guys the best content, standing up at my little podium (sitting at my keyboard) and ranting about the market. To be completely honest, I seriously doubted whether I’d be able to continue to write this.

But guess what

I’m not leavin

Though it might require another cold brew or two every week to get it done, I’ll be back every single week to chat startups with you guys, striving to bring you high quality in every single edition. Whether it’s highlighting market trends or putting you on the startups that are going to be big enough to make their own acronym groupings (FAANG who?), I’m in it for the long run. Let’s get venturin’, baby.

I’m particularly excited about the content I have planned out for the Premium Newsletter where I’ll be breaking down the latest laws and regulations and what they might mean for the world of startups, combing through and translating the noise that should actually be treated as more than a buzzing fly.

Sneak peak for the next edition at the bottom of the News section. It’s only $5 to get these more in-depth articles in addition to your regular diet of startup spotlights (gotta pay for those extra cold brews somehow).

However, they’re going to come a bit less frequently. For the rest of the year, I’m going to rotate between free and premium content, meaning the next newsletter is going to be The Startup Breakdown: After Dark next Thursday.

Also, though I do love greeting you guys to start every new week, I’m going to make chilling in your inbox on Thursdays a regular thing. All newsletters will now be going out on Thursdays. My Beehiiv analytics show that you guys are most active between 10:30-11:30CT, so set your alarm for then.

Like, set one for each minute in that hour interval and relentlessly refresh your inbox to see if it’s there yet.

Finally, I’ve finally caved and admitted that maybe, just maybe, I might need some help. If you’re interested in contributing, whether as an editor, BDR, or even writer, shoot me a reply. Or, if you know of someone who would be a great fit, why have you not already asked them to subscribe in which case they would have been referenced in the first part of this paragraph?

It’s not too late to atone for your sins. Either reply with their contact info and I’ll send them an email making them feel special, or forward this to them so that they can take the initiative (and subscribe obviously) on their own.

Toodles

You’re the oldest you’ve ever been and the youngest you’ll ever be again.

Now that you’ve accepted that grim, slightly unsettling fact, you might be thinking “wow, I’m getting old… I should start being super nice to my kids so that they never put me in a home.” Either that, or you’ve taken the opposing approach of YOLO gotta jump out of a plane and swim with sharks before my knees can no longer take it.

It's time to think about what this means for you—or your grandparents. Aging at home is hard, as I've personally seen with my grandfather. Enter Blooming Health, the startup modernizing at-home elderly care.

Like many, my grandfather was stubborn about aging at home. Blooming Health is tackling this universal problem by modernizing at-home care with AI and automation. Its platform deploys AI, automation, and data analysis to improve patient care, innovating on the existing communication channels to keep older adults engaged with supportive professionals who are able to better detect and address the needs of these people remotely.

Traction

Blooming Health can send targeted communications to thousands of patients, from health alerts to medication reminders. Fresh off raising a $4.2 million seed round, the company is seeing impressive growth. Some of the participating investors include:

• Afore Capital

• Crossbeam Venture Partners

• Chelsea Clinton’s investment firm, Metrodora

• Angel investor and DoorDash Cofounder, Evan Moore

• Andrew Parker (founder of unicorn Papa; also joining advisory board)

The company currently has operations across New York, Arizona, Texas, and California and will use this round to expand operations to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan with a goal of reaching 1 million older adults by the end of 2024.

Already, they’ve helped caregivers to provide more than $10 million worth of services.

They’ve partnered with various city governments and massive organizations like

• AARP in New York where they were able to aid in expanding access to SNAP benefits for its members by 5x, valued at $180K.

• The City of Yonkers also used them and saved their elderly service office almost a week per month in time spent communicating with their patients.

A quick (or not when you’re stuck behind 7 Camrys on their way to Cracker Barrel for the early bird pancake breakfast special) drive around my hometown will tell you that we have a lot of older people in the world. As such, the

• $1.2 trillion US elderly care services by 2029

• $112.7 billion agetech market by 2027

aren’t all that shocking.

The market is only going to get bigger as modern healthcare enables longer living, improving technology (particularly AI in healthcare) allow for more remote care, and the lingering effects of COVID causing widespread reluctance to visit in-person healthcare professionals.

However, though the “remote” market isn’t as big yet, there are still some formidable established companies that will likely pivot into the remote market is it takes off.

• Care.com offers companionship, medication management, and transportation through a subscription

• Mon Ami helps senior care providers with services such as telemedicine and remote monitoring provides loved ones and caregivers with tools for video chat, activity monitoring, and medication reminders

• GrandCare

The team behind Blooming is flor-r(e)al (tried to play on the name… 5/10)

• Nima Roohi, CEO - former Head of Decision Science at Bayer

• Kavitha Gnanasambandan, CCO - biomedical cancer scientist

• Naman Gupta, CPO - former Director of Technology Program Management at WebMD

Advisors include

• Robby Sikka (also advises Tonal, Oura, professional sports physician)

• Bob Blancato (AARP Board Member)

• Rick Berry (founded Demandforce

In an industry serving the “back in my day” folks, this is one field that really hasn’t changed all that much over the last few decades. It’s about time we break the stigma around aging and ensure accessible care for people to age healthily and in the comforts of their own home.

While the team continues to revolutionize the future of elderly care, though, maybe give your grandma a call. Maybe she’ll bake you her special brownies or pumpkin bread (hint hint, @grandma… i know you’re reading this)

TLDR: Blooming Health is modernizing at-home care for the elderly with AI and automation, making it easier for our stubborn grandparents to age gracefully in their own homes. Fresh off a $4.2M seed round, they're scaling quickly with ambitious plans to reach 1 million older adults by 2024. In a booming market for elderly care, Blooming stands out for its tech-savvy approach and proven impact.

I wouldn’t shut up in the intro, so let’s go rapid fire for the news:

Rookies Get No Love

Only 52 first-time managers raised funds in H1.

Given how many people put “Investor” in their LinkedIn bios, this number seems low.

Turns out it is, and this year is tracking to have the fewest new venture raises in more than 10 years 📉 

But IPOs Are Having a Jeremy Lin-like Streak

Private companies can feel cuffing szn creeping up, and now they all have massive heart eyes for the public markets.

Arm started the party, absolutely killing it while raking in $5 billion in its recent raise which saw its share price soar 25% a couple weeks ago, the largest IPO in a couple of years before retracing all of those gains and some :(

Then, every lazy uber busy person’s go-to for sriracha and Halloween candy, Instacart, got all juiced and ready to go when it soared 40% on its opening day (notably a far cry from its pandemic highs just south of $40 billion) before ALSO losing all of those gains.

Klaviyo actually had a pretty solid debut before following in the footsteps of both ^ of its predecessors.

Soooo maybe IPO markets aren’t en vogue this fall?

Startup Breakdown, Literally

SimpleClosure made headlines this week, raising a seed round for helping other companies that also raised seed rounds and then spent it all.

The startup is helping other startups to shut down, reducing time and monetary costs considerably. Really ripping off the Bandaid.

Data is the New Oil

And for those in the search for startup data, a Saudi Arabia-sized field just opened up.

Oxford’s biz school (Saïd) and VC OpenOcean hopped on a track together and whipped up O3, what they claim to be the “world’s most accurate” platform for all things startup data.

Give her a whirl and lmk what you think 

What Dining Hall Food Did Founders Endure?

Recent list from PitchBook ranking schools by the number of VC-backed founders and total amount raised?

Hint, the top 2 can pretty much pitch investors on their way to class.

California Knows How to Party… and Piss Off Tech

SB 54 survived dominated Senate and heads to Gov Gav’s desk for the ol’ John Han. The law will require VCs to report the demographic makeups and deal size of their investments, the country’s first diversity in venture law.

AB 316 was also passed and awaits the final sign off. This one requires a trained human operator to be in every heavy duty vehicle on the state’s roads, effectively banning autonomous trucks.

At this point, Gav might as well just get a stamp of his sig.

What Does the Google Antitrust Hearing Mean for Startups?

Everyone’s default search engine (that’s kinda the problem) got grilled by the same group that once asked Zuck to explain the internet to them.

The antitrust suit is spicy, marking one of the DOJ’s 3 biggest antitrust suits brought against tech giants.

What are the details?

What are the likely outcomes?

And more importantly for us, what are the learnings (and potential opportunities 👀) that the case provides for startups?

Subscribe now to find out.

Does your heart look like this 💔 now that you’re only going to get 1 newsletter talking about an early stage startup per week?

Instead of making you go cold turkey, I’m giving you your fix. Check out my friends over at Venture Scout for the soon-to-be biggest names in SaaS.

Cheers to another day,

Trey