CareYaya, a platform that matches individuals who want caregivers with healthcare college students, is working to disrupt the caregiving business. The startup, which exhibited as a part of the Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt, is trying to improve reasonably priced in-home help, whereas additionally serving to college students put together for his or her future healthcare careers.
The startup was based in 2022 by Neal Shah, who got here up with the thought for the startup primarily based on his personal expertise as a caregiver for his spouse after she turned unwell with most cancers and numerous different illnesses. Throughout this time, Shah was a companion at a hedge fund and needed to wind down his fund to turn into a full-time caregiver for 2 years.
To get extra look after his spouse, Shah employed faculty college students who had been learning healthcare to be caregivers for his spouse. Shah discovered that different households had been doing the identical factor informally by posting flyers at native campuses to search out somebody who was certified to take care of their beloved one.
“I used to be like, wouldn’t or not it’s good to only construct a proper system for them to do it, the place you don’t need to go to your native nursing college or your native undergrad campus and put up flyers,” Shah informed TechCrunch. “That is what I used to be doing. So we had been like, if you happen to can convey that into a proper capability by means of a tech platform, you may make a huge impact.”
Quick-forward to 2024, and the platform now has over 25,000 college students on its platform from quite a few colleges, together with Duke College, Stanford, UC Berkeley, San Jose State, College of Texas at Austin, and extra.
CareYaya performs background checks on college students who wish to be a part of the platform after which completes video-based interviews with them. On the consumer facet, folks can be a part of the platform after which element the kind of care their beloved one wants. CareYaya then matches college students to households, whether or not it’s for one-off classes or steady care. After the primary session, each events can go away rankings.
The startup says it may assist households save hundreds of {dollars} on recurring senior care. Whereas at-home care prices a mean of $35 per hour within the U.S., CareYaya prices between $17 and $20 per hour.
Because the college students offering the care are tech savvy, CareYaya is equipping them with AI-powered expertise to acknowledge and observe illness development in sufferers with Alzheimer’s and dementia. The corporate lately launched an LLM (massive language mannequin) that integrates with sensible glasses to assemble visible information to assist college students present higher real-time help and conduct early dementia screening.
When it comes to the longer term, CareYaya desires to discover increasing past america, because the platform has seen curiosity from folks in locations like Canada, Australia, and the UK.
