CABHI, Aging 2.0 and organizations like the Rockies Venture Club and the NextFifty Initiative are setting the pace for enhanced collaboration in the longevity community and in drawing risk capital to new innovations that serve the aging population. Denver is gaining a reputation as a center within a growing global community dedicated to this burgeoning industry and social movement.
2. Longevity ROI Acceleration
Return on investment timeline expectations in the longevity space are typically longer than the often 10x returns venture capitalists look for in traditional technology investments. However, this is changing due to a number of factors, including a rapidly growing aging population that is steadily increasing their technology adoption rates.
3. Growing Market: Caregiver Support
Many new innovations are not necessarily focused on the patient or client, but on empowering caregivers to do their jobs better, and to avoid burnout, depression and expensive staff turnover. Task coordination and sector navigation technologies are quickly being developed and adopted.
4. Demand for Solutions to Social Isolation
When older adults live on their own, the risk of rapid deterioration in their health that comes from isolation, loneliness and depression is high. Communication and transportation solutions, voice-control devices, smart home technology, robots, and a variety of social networking tools are all being considered as possible solutions to this increasing problem. Many of these are appealing to traditional venture capitalists, but high costs and poor user experiences delay investment returns, product standardization and insurance reimbursement support.
“The reason Aging 2.0, AARP and NextFifty Initiative are Denver Startup Week Sponsors is to raise awareness of the fact that there’s an enormous market in the aging space.”