Announcing Our Series A Investment in Getsetup
We are excited to announce that we have led the Series A round in Getsetup, a platform that was started to help older adults teach and learn the essential skills they need for the next phase of their lives.
Getsetup helps retrain retired educators to teach the U.S.’s growing senior population how to do the important things in their lives online, from navigating services online such as Medicare to running an e-commerce site. On the demand side, the number of Americans age 65 and older is projected to nearly double from 52 million in 2018 to 95 million by 2060. The technology services and tools to help these people live happy, productive lives are just beginning to be built. On the supply side, there are over a million retired teachers who have limited access to jobs that use their full range of skills or even pay them a decent wage, especially if they have mobility problems and want to work from their homes.
The platform provides live group video classes facilitated by empathetic guides. Topics range from job-related professional development to aspirational enrichment content. Customers can work through a personalized curriculum and make notes, save and play back sessions, access curated articles and videos, and discover other relevant tools. Through COVID-19, with senior citizens taking extra care around social distancing requirements and facing isolation, Getsetup has become a place of community for older adults to learn together and interact safely with peers. Many students invite a friend to join a class.
We are excited about the potential of our first “SilverEd” investment to create a future where older adults can unlock economic opportunity through learning to live more healthy, prosperous and connected lives. We are also excited about the power of the platform to create social connectedness and tackle loneliness among seniors, especially for learners from suburban or rural areas where remote learning provides access to new opportunities. The senior population is projected to grow significantly, yet there are not enough solutions that tap into and enable the creative potential of older adults.
Co-founders Neil D’Souza and Lawrence Kosick launched Getsetup in early 2020. Neil, the CEO and product head, was the founder of Zaya Learning Labs, a company which sells low-cost software to schools in India, and started his career as a software engineer at Cisco. Lawrence, the Business Head, most recently served as VP of Business Development at IFTTT, the leading connectivity platform with over 17 million users and 700 corporate customers. We are thrilled to be supporting this experienced team building “the online senior community” that will enrich the lives of an underserved aging population.
