For years, ambitious startup founders have tried to tackle some of the most important problems in the U.S.—like the caregiving crisis. Often, it’s been proven that some problems (like access to child care) just require public-sector action for a true solution.
But one startup recently caught my eye for finding a corner of the caregiving crisis to fix—one in which it seems as if tech can actually be an answer. Jenny Lee is the cofounder of Hera, which is taking advantage of 2024 reforms to Medicare permitting the reimbursement of care coordination services. Now nine months in, Hera is offering virtual care coordination for families of older adults—not physical caregiving itself, but assistance with the hours spent arranging medications and fighting on the phone with insurance companies. The company just raised a $27 million Series A round led by Bain Capital Ventures, I can exclusively report.
It’s a tech-driven solution to the demands of the sandwich generation that nearly always fall on women. “It’s just always fallen on the shoulders of family,” Lee says, explaining why this problem hasn’t been tackled already. “It’s often the adult daughter that ends up shouldering this.”
Lee was an early employee at Headway, where she observed the impact of insurance changes to mental health coverage (and the growth of startups like Alma as a result). Bain Capital Ventures’ Alysaa Co, who led this investment, compares the two categories too.
