Airbnb may have video games with sex and romacncecornered the market on millennials, but a new company wants to win over their grandparents.
Seniorly, a San Francisco-based startup, is trying to be the Airbnb for assisted living. The company provides a database of assisted living options in its covered areas that senior citizens or their family members can search to find the best assisted living option.
That database now includes more than just a directory of care centers. The startup this week launched an option to book short-term assisted-living stays, as opposed to long-term care arrangements.
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It first launched its platform in January 2015 and has raised $1.2 million in seed funding.
"Fifteen million family members are taking care of an aging relative, and they're still working or have kids. They need to travel for work or take a vacation and have a safe environment for a loved one to stay during that time," Seniorly CEO Arthur Bretschneider told Mashable. "We work with traditional assisted living communities and can offer short-term stays when they have availabilities."
Seniorly tracks assisted living openings to facilitate short-term stays in communities that traditionally only offer longer-term care options. The service helps fill gaps for assisted living facilities and bridge care options for senior citizens.
People who book short-term stays through Seniorly may be in need of care while families members are busy, or might need more care than usual while recovering from a medical procedure. The short-term stays, or respite services, range from three days to three months.
There hasn't really been an option to easily find short-term assisted living care before, Bretschneider says. Senior citizens' advocates will often call assisted living facilities to find short-term openings, but the information hasn't been centralized.
Stays booked through Seniorly generally cost between $100 and $300 a day.
While Seniorly compares itself to Airbnb since it facilitates accommodations but doesn't provide any itself, booking assisted living is more complex than booking an apartment for a vacation or business trip.
In between requesting to book and confirming an assisted-living stay, Seniorly customers must get paperwork from a physician providing an assessment of their health.
On Seniorly's side, the company also has to visit the assisted living sites that are included in its inventory before adding them to its database.
Right now, Seniorly is only operating in northern California and Los Angeles, but it's hoping to expand in the near future. In addition to its short-term stays, the company does use its database to facilitate long-term assisted living care.