Decoding an AgeTech blueprint for India

If Rahul and I had a buck for every time a VC told us, ‘We’re building our AgeTech thesis presently’, we’d have been very rich by now.

Which is why it was good to see Blume’s BluPrint on AgeTech that makes an earnest attempt to put spotlight on the sector.

This is commendable given that they have quantified various slivers of a market that’s so nascent in India that monetization models are so far unproven.

Since it went up on social media yesterday, we got messages from a few people in the ecosystem who were curious to know our take. So here’s what we think the report did well on and what could be improved in further editions.

The good:

1. Segmenting of Potential Markets

Blume historically does this well across categories (their EdTech report too followed a similar template). That the report highlighted both niches within niches (home care) and even multiple categories across broad markets like Nutrition was good to see.

Further, there are market maps identified on the basis of ability to pay, current activity and near-term opportunity areas — all stuff that no one so far (except AgeTech’s crazy founders) from the VC world had taken pains to put together and put out there for the public at large.

2. The segment on Japan

It’s the most greyed economy in the world so it was eye-opening to see examples of what’s worked there. This was a large unknown to many of us at India that the report does well to highlight successful examples of.

Along with the section on Japan, there is a slide on Global Eldercare Market. This is again very well put together. Just like Japan, could there have been breakout examples also mentioned from US- the largest consumer market in the world? Perhaps yes. But for now, let’s stick with the good.

3. A good rubric for new founders

This is the most encouraging thing about this report. When we started Ivory in Oct 2022, there were hardly any organized reports that were available for ready reference.

One had to painstakingly go through different sources and triangulate market sizes, figure out potential to pay and put together slides that would make rational sense in a deck. Founders had this problem and so did the VCs.

So it’s heartening to see that when new talent enters this space, they will now have a reference point to question/amend and form their own hypothesis for Eldercare.

4. The nuance around ability to pay:

Another aspect that was good to see was that they ‘get’ the nuance involved when a child pays for services for parents and the consumer’s reluctance to accept money from their children.

We speak from experience because over the last year, across multiple monetization experiments, we have had both TGs (sons & daughters and the 50–70 y.o.) paying for Ivory’s products and services. The journeys and user experiences involved are fascinating here. For instance, how does a father-in-law or a mother-in-law take to their daughter-in-law paying for a service?

We love the permutations here and these can be discussed ad nauseum but for now, well done to Blume in noting this nuance and calling it out on Slide 7.

What could be better:

1. Absent consumer voices

As a fund that works so closely with Consumer startups, we found this a bit jarring.

What’s the consumer articulation of a Financial Product for Seniors? What’s the home healthcare person looking for when he signs up for Emoha? When a consumer in this segment seeks a nutritional product, why is his/her need different than others?

We didn’t see enough color of what consumers are saying in the report.

Each of the five categories would’ve benefitted from real/primary consumer-speak. Instead, quite a lot of it felt like secondary research. It might not have been, but it felt like that given the absence of these consumer voices.

2. Loneliness-solving alternatives from Global Markets

While the report’s sub-section on Japan was interesting, it’s also a market that has implemented multiple alternatives solving for loneliness in elders’ lives.

Some of these are offline-heavy and some are deep-tech focussed. Loneliness is a fascinating global problem where the rest of the world is ahead of us. MIT too last year documented their efforts in this space.

Subsequent versions of the report can benefit from a lens on possible solutions in this space.

3. Didn’t go deep enough in Healthcare

Interestingly, the report begins with segmenting and identifying a key paying segment using degree of ‘health severity’ as a baseline. However, structurally this baseline is never referred to again.

We also have a first-principles disconnect with this segment that they mention is lucrative called WOOPWHIs- “HNIs with no health issues”.

So a question to dig further perhaps for everyone in the ecosystem is: “Do we really know even 5 people in our circle who are let’s say 45+ or 50+ with no health issues?”

Contrary to what’s in the report, we think the larger play here is in the HNI segment with ‘moderate to severe health issues’.

Another common misconception in AgeTech is to build for use cases where consumer needs physical/digital assistance. That stage comes post the 75 age mark for the majority of consumers.

Health related needs for those in the 50–70 age group do not find a mention and we find that to be a miss. The majority of startups in this category in this chart below would be relevant for the 70+ age group.

Blume calls out a consumer segment as ‘Mid-Age’ earlier in the report but in the chart above their needs were clubbed without any distinction being made between those who are elder than ‘Mid-Age’.

The question to note is what exactly is the demo of the “Elder Healthcare Market” being referred here? Is it the demo of 45–75 or 50–85 or 60–75 or is it something else?

Those are some important unanswered questions.

Having said that, the onus is not on Blume but on founders in the AgeTech ecosystem to carve more forks and add to the narrative of attractiveness of this sector.

Our parting note

It takes a zephyr to start a wind and for a wind to start a storm.

We sincerely hope this zephyr becomes the foundation of a storm in VCs understanding this space better.

We’re keenly building (and watching) at Ivory!

Slide credits: Blume Team