The care sector is anything but easy. It is perceived as complicated, expensive and intransparent on one side, underpaid on the other, overall exhausting, and can be emotional on top. But it doesn’t have to be. Enter marta.
Why does live-in care need a makeover?
With large numbers of retirees and the low birth rates we see today, our population is constrictive – posing a generational challenge for retirement and healthcare systems. In addition, the care industry has been riddled with staff shortages for the last decade, with the job becoming increasingly more unattractive due to its immense workload and little compensation. Additionally, healthcare services have limited capabilities to cover this need in healthcare services in a cost-effective manner.
The Baby Boomer Generation will face challenges arising from a lack of caregivers
For example, Germany already has more than four million people in need of care and that number keeps rising. According to estimates, by 2035, the country will need half a million caregivers — 120,000 more than today, as the baby boomer generation will be needing help.
Underestimated and underappreciated: the importance of finding your perfect match
Currently filling this gap are foreign workers, which are paid a lower than average salary by German standards given the hours and work involved. Although the demand for live-in care is known within the industry, legacy players do not prioritise finding and matching the right caregiver and respective careseeker.
The status quo relies on manual (and often emotional) search and more often involves multiple parties and agencies until the match is done. This leads to a bad experience for both parties, due to the fact that on the one hand families' requirements and on the other hand caregivers' expectations are disregarded. This can lead to caregivers leaving their family within a couple of days, after which the family is back at the beginning of the process.
Why did we invest in Marta?
With the vision to make elderly care more affordable, transparent and reliable, especially focusing on the live-in care sector, marta wants to rebuild the way live-in care is offered. By directly matching 120 data points of caregivers with careseekers, they effectively cut out multiple middlemen that were otherwise involved in this process, while at the same time offering higher transparency and delivering a more personalised user experience at lower costs. The team is focusing on making the entire process of finding caregivers as automated and hands-off as possible, while maintaining a high standard of quality in finding the right caregiver and creating proper standards for caregivers to enjoy their job. Marta can match a caregiver with a family in two to five days only, opposed to a much longer process of finding a caregiver the old way.
For us, even at its early stage, marta’s software and product development is exceptionally mature. Automating as much of the matching process as possible enables marta to focus on the important parts of live-in care services: These are not only competitive prices and good working conditions for caregivers, but also complete transparency over the selection process. marta’s matching process is fast, while it creates an unreached fit between family and caregiver, ensuring that a family is matched with the exact caregiver that is needed as well as selecting a family that the caregiver enjoys to work with. So far, Marta has matched more than 700 independent caregivers to families in search of live-in care successfully.
The team that makes this possible
We followed Jan and Phillips journey with marta for a while before we decided to invest. Finally, their story and passion convinced us. Both discovered the care industry in a similar way most people do: Their relatives needed care and they were in charge of finding a live-in caregiver. With a market as complicated, overpriced and intransparent both searched for five years to find a decent agency to work with before their frustration led them to start marta and build what they were looking for themselves.
marta is currently expanding their team with new talents to expand their partnerships, focusing on their brand and sharpening their matching algorithm.
We at Capnamic are delighted to join this team and support them in the much needed reshaping of the live-in care industry.
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