How Primetime Partners is Shaping the Future of Aging | The AgeTech Podcast S4E3 with Abby Miller Levy

Abby Miller Levy: In many countries by 2060, there’ll be more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 18. And this population shift has tremendous implications on global health care, financial services, housing, workforce, consumer media, retail, pretty much most areas of economies are impacted by this shift.

Keren Etkin: Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of the AgeTech podcast. I’m here today with Abby Miller Levy who is the founding partner at Primetime Partners. Abby, welcome to the show.

Abby Miller Levy: Keren, it’s so nice to see you. We’ve had so many conversations through the years. You are a leader in the space, so I’m very honored to be on the show.

Keren Etkin: Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me. Can you just tell us a little bit about the background behind primetime partners?

Abby Miller Levy: We are an early stage venture capital fund that invests in seed to series a companies focused on redefining how we age and improving the quality of living of older adults.

The basic premise behind the fund is that there’s a massive population shift that we’ve all known was coming, but that we didn’t necessarily, prepare for in terms of the fact that in many countries by 2060, there’ll be more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 18. And this population shift has tremendous implications on global health care, financial services, housing, workforce, consumer media, retail, pretty much most areas of economies are impacted by this shift.

And that is a wonderful opportunity for entrepreneurs to build businesses. And so that was the premise behind primetime when me and my partner, Alan Patricoff launched the fund in the summer of 2020, is to say what needs to be built to accommodate an aging population.

Keren Etkin: So what gets you personally interested in this space?

Abby Miller Levy: It’s interesting because I started the fund at 45, my partner is 85. And so we had brought to our lives, our own set of experiences. For me, what got me interested in aging was my dad’s experience. He was prematurely retired his company, went out of business. I just saw firsthand that is at least how we think about defining our sixties, seventies, eighties is still white space.

It’s still open. There’s not a lot of opportunities and consideration for an aging population. As a contrast, my partner, Alan, he came, we got together, when he was noticing that his friends were retiring and how are they spending their time, but he was also a caregiver for 12 years to his wife who suffered from Alzheimer’s.

And so we both came with our own individual experiences combined with my background, which is I’m a former founder myself. I’ve always worked with growth companies, and startups. And so I was tuned into the power that entrepreneurs have to design innovative solutions. So I felt the problem myself.

I knew a mechanism would be entrepreneurs. And so I decided the right business to start wasn’t a single startup. What was actually a venture fund. So I’m an entrepreneur that realized the right business was a venture capital fund.

Keren Etkin: It’s it makes a lot of sense for sure. So the fund is based in New York, but you are able to invest globally,

I’m curious. Do you see a difference between East Coast and West Coast startups?

Abby Miller Levy: That’s a loaded question because I’m a New Yorker. So, Of course, I see a difference. but, we’re a team of 5 full time. We’re here in New York City. Very proud of that. But we work very collaboratively with a lot of other investors.

We have co invested with 80 other funds, across our portfolio. And I think the common theme across all of the funders that I’ve come across. Is that pretty much everybody has a personal conviction about the space. They’re either a family caregiver themselves. They have experienced the pressure of being in the sandwich generation between being a parent and caring for an older loved one.

They were close to one of their grandparents, but it’s a deeply personal topic. That people can relate to. And I think that helps refine your investor instincts is because you can understand the problem personally. So I would say the difference, I don’t see a difference in East and West coast investing on that point.

I do of course, there is a reputation West coast investors are a little less price sensitive East coast investors are a little more price sensitive and I can’t speak categorically about it. I’m very proud to say that primetime, even in the very high valuation days of 2021 and 2022 in healthcare and digital health, that for the most part, we avoided getting too heady in over our skis, as I like to say in but I think we were all subjected to a real boom. In venture capital spending in those years, and now we’re dealing with it on the other side, which is much more of a retrenchment in the 2024 vintage.

Keren Etkin: Speaking of the 2024 vintage,

I’m not going to ask about a favorite portfolio company, because I know that’s an unfair question,

but I would love to know which of your most recent investments from the 2024 vintage are you

most excited about, or in general, like what Which of your portfolio companies do you think embodies the the spirit of what is most needed in the AgeTech space right now?

Abby Miller Levy: Well I can point Our most recent investment that we made as part of our fund II, our second fund called Thrive Health Tech, no relation to the business I started with Arianne Huffington called Thrive Global Tech what Thrive Health Tech does, it is it healthcare enabled mobile phone that is subsidized by Medicaid.

So Medicaid in the US, which is the program for low income Americans they have a government program to subsidize mobile, access to a mobile phone, the hardware, as well as a mobile plan. And what Thrive did was develop a fantastic technology to make sure that out of the gate, your phone is HIPAA compliant and able to basically be connected to and receive healthcare information.

And so as opposed to all the tedious levels of engagement, where you need to first get an older adult to use it, use the hardware, use the phone, then get them to download an app, then teach them how to do these different things.

It’s all of that text messaging, which is already just embedded and ready to go

on their phone. And what, how, the reason it typifies A primetime investment

Is along a couple of vectors.

One is the team’s absolutely fantastic. And so it is a team that combines subject matter expertise around telecommunications with healthcare expertise because both Frist Cressey and CVS

Are on the cap table and led the

So two great healthcare, Firms and funds. And so team is great. Second it deals with one of the biggest issues. in health span and improving the quality of living older adults, which is how you reach individuals and engage them.

And the phone is the easiest way these days to engage anybody in the world, and especially older adults in the U.S. And so leaning in on how

you can combine the device or the mechanism of engagement that’s already accepted with the right data and information is very powerful.

And then I think the third piece is commercial velocity. As a fund, we are, of course, here to make money for

our investors. And we’d love to do good at the same time, but our goal is

returns. And so the nature of the commercial contracts that Health like Thrive Health Tech

Can sign the scale, the velocity, that’s all very

important. So I

would definitely highlight that as both our most recent and a type of investment that kind

of illuminates a AgeTech

about AgeTech

Keren Etkin: sounds like a brilliant concept. I just read recently that Everyone, especially older adults, just hate their healthcare providers portals.

So making the phone HIPAA

compliant,

just, it just makes total sense. Like how come no one else has thought of that previously? It makes a lot of sense.

Abby Miller Levy: It’s not easy to

do. And that’s, what’s great. Again, from an investment perspective is where there’s a

tech mo technology moat.

It’s definitely

a it’s a better place to be,

Keren Etkin: Speaking of moats,

what sort of, when

review a startup when you do your due diligence, what helps you get

conviction on, one startup

over their competitors, assuming that they, those

exist.

Abby Miller Levy: It’s so interesting because we just had our investment committee meeting

today. And what we look at about 600 to 700 deals a

year. and what we always as a team go back to when we

see

a company, we’re like, Oh, that’s just like blank, because you find that there are ideas in clusters

that entrepreneurs, particularly because we do early

stage Just from a PowerPoint through to early traction that

entrepreneurs are

not in a vacuum, they know what might work.

And so there’s a lot of similarity of ideas.

And so

one of the things,

a perfect example is one of our last investments or one of our bigger investments in fund one was a business called open

loop and open

loop is a telemedicine platform that really is the pipes to enable hundreds of different digital health businesses

Health plans, hospital systems to deliver telemedicine

with

reimbursement with, remote patient monitoring with all the bells and whistles.

And before we invested in open loop, we probably looked at, I don’t know, 10 other telemedicine platforms.

So what

made open loop so

different is always

team

better product.

And back to this question of commercial velocity, there’s something about the product,

the team, the network that makes it a lot easier to get

an enterprise customer to yes.

It’s like taking

friction out of the sales process.

That’s why we invested in open loop versus again, about 10 or so other telemedicine platforms

that we evaluated.

So I like the

clustering of deals. I like when we get to see many deals that are similar because then it helps you differentiate why one is going to succeed more than the other.

But it’s weird. It’s funny. We like, it’s like, trending in startup land, And certainly right now, everything AI,

Business process

flow is what’s , trending in AgeTech investing.

Keren Etkin: Speaking of

trends, where do you

see some of the gaps in the market that no one is addressing that you hear possible buyers asking for, but no one is making those solutions for them?

Abby Miller Levy: most of our buyers are enterprise customers like health plans, long term care insurance companies, life insurance

companies. And so I think there’s a couple of unmet needs.

One on the kind of

financial services

side of aging is, listen, 50 percent of Americans are going to run out of money.

Our retirement savings is woefully unfunded, underfunded.

And

so the thing that would change

that

fastest close that gap fastest, it’s not a shocking concept is if people don’t retire so young, they keep working

that’s how you

change the math.

And so what we

haven’t seen is we haven’t seen a lot of HR tech or

kind of employer focused solutions on keeping people in the workplace longer.

We frankly, we looked at

1. One based

in India and one based in the U. K. And that’s an area around and there’s a couple of startups in the U. S.

That are starting to play around with

this, But that is where we

need probably a little bit of regulatory or PR pressure on employers

to think about age diversity as part of DEI as well as workforce longevity as a good thing for their

business. So that’s an area

that kind of factors

into financial

longevity.

That

really, I think has not

Really discussed another areas. We’ve been looking for a prop tech solution.

So basically, how do we think about the fact that over 80 percent of older adults own their own

homes in the U S

and the average age of those houses are over 20 years.

We have one investment in a business called Rosarium that uses Medicare reimbursement. For

home modification, particularly around fall prevention and

to put

in grab bars and make sure rugs are taped down or removed and things like that.

But overall, our housing stock is Inadequate. And there’s only about 2 million senior living beds in our

country. So we really don’t have the right housing solutions.

And we’ve heard this from, Honestly companies and, organizations

in Japan and Israel and the UK. So it’s not just a us problem, there’s, it hasn’t been a lot around prop tech.

But since about two thirds of our investing

is in the health care side,

because health care still is

one of the biggest opportunities to increase health span. We have have not. Yet seen enough on preventative care and we you hear this all

the time. We’re a sick care country, not a well care, but I

think one of the really exciting things that we’re starting to see is how data and diagnostics can really start to influence decision making when you’re

younger. because if

we just think about health span age 65 plus,

it’s,

We’ve missed the boat.

So I

think we’re starting to get excited about some of

the diagnostics

businesses that can help make individuals more aware whether it’s blood biomarkers, gut health, inflammation, hormone management, all of

the things

that contribute to

disease. How can we start to

understand those earlier in our own lives, and contribute to a

longer and better health

span?

Keren Etkin: Which is the point where

AgeTech meets longevity and

biotech,

which I like to see as two

separate industries, but there is some

overlap and there are startups

doing

both, which is interesting.

Abby Miller Levy: And also, and we get, I say when I, we’re currently closing out the fundraising for our second

fund. And so I’ll start out by saying, we are not a life sciences fund. We don’t invest in businesses that extend life. We try to really improve health

span. but there are

cousins, and so we will invest in businesses around data

capture, around distribution. You cannot distribute all of the

amazing innovations in life

sciences are going

to

need provider

training and consumer education and access and member engagement, and that’s where we

play. We play on the data and distribution of life

sciences, not the research and development of them.

Keren Etkin: That is such an important clarification to make because I

feel like outsiders to this ecosystem don’t really

understand. The nuances.

Abby Miller Levy: I think there’s money to be made in both. And

Unfortunately or fortunately On the AgeTech side

of things,

it’s not like there’s been 10 unicorns publicly traded to, to point

to, but on the life sciences piece there, while it’s much riskier, there are some examples to

point to to say, okay, this is,

These are the gold stars and we’re still building that on the AgeTech side.

Keren Etkin: Absolutely. It’s

such

a maturing ecosystem still. Yeah.

Have you seen any,

business models that you think are really exciting and promising that startups aren’t really into yet? Because

I, know that many

startups are selling

to senior living and home care, and many are going through

the Medicare

slash Medicaid reimbursement benefit route.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. But I’m curious.

What have you seen that

works?

Abby Miller Levy: So those work.

Our businesses with enterprise

sales

Absolutely work. I think those are usually pay per performance or fee for service and things like

that. Value based care arrangements in the U.S. Get a lot of airtime. I think it’s yeah. That also, that model will continue to grow in penetration, particularly as businesses mature and have more data.

But one of the pieces when you’re asking the

question,

Keren is interesting. I was trying is what’s something I haven’t seen yet.

And

one of the things that we haven’t seen a lot of is having multiple stakeholders pay. In other words, where there’s part consumer payment, partial employer.

Partial health plan

we haven’t really seen the ability to divide up responsibility in a way that makes sense. And I think that we’ll probably start to see some of those

in housing

situations where it’s

really more subsidies and incentives, but that’s where I would

say,

We haven’t seen a lot

on incentive based.

Or behavioral based payments. For example, one of our, we have 2 companies in the retirement space.

You could see retirement savings and I hate to use the word gamified,

but just with more incentives, and the corporate match in the U.S. is an incentive, but how do we use behavioral incentives to change the fundamental behavior that most people have, which is they don’t think to the future because it’s scary.

And we are concerned about death. We’re concerned about getting

old, so we don’t

adequately plan for it.

In order to change,

in order for

all of

of

these AgeTech

companies to be successful, the individual consumer has to start to change some behavior.

And those are

some of the business models, to be honest, I have not seen

yet, Are ones that really are forward thinking about incentives to change

individual behavior.

It’s

hard. Super

hard, but we’re getting there and some on climate

tech, another topic that’s similar to aging, that the data has always been there, that this is a major global trend that is expensive and everyone has

to

put money into it. Kind

of contribute

their

part. And,

How

does

that,

What can we learn

from In terms of the longevity sector?

Keren Etkin: it’s

really interesting. Equation

to think about climate and aging,

because yeah, the incentives are.

Unfortunately not

great, For us to Just eat well and

recycle, which is,

Abby Miller Levy: yeah, listen, these are hard things to do.

it

takes, it takes more work.

Keren Etkin: It definitely takes more work and, you’re right that sometimes we have to experience it for ourselves in our own family with an older loved one, whether it’s a parent or a grandparent to get to the realization

that

we

have to change something in our own

lives.

So before

we wrap up, I always like to ask my guests on this podcast to take out their crystal ball and try to imagine

what our ecosystem could look like five, 10 or 20 years

down the line.

So how do you see the ecosystem changing?

What do you see

do you see

our future? Maybe when we’re older,

what will that be like?

Abby Miller Levy: So there’s the kind of societal level. And

then there’s

the business opportunity

at a

societal

level,

I think, and I hope, and people say this, which is an ageist thing to say 70 is the new

50 or 80 is the new

60, as a way of saying as. Aging with

health can become easier.

that,

and as they’re more and more people reach

know, a reach

being a hundred years

old, that’s just

not as big of a deal to be an older person around the globe.

And

so I think if I

had a crystal ball that I’d like to wish for

Would

really be around thinking about

this as being ageless, Which is a term that Alan and I stole from Estee Lauder because they were talking

about, beauty and it being ageless,

but that we, we are not so focused.

On the number and the segmentation of our society based on

age that we when people talk about being you know, colorblind that you’re age blind.

And

so

I think that is something that we’re seeing pieces of this.

because

people are living

longer

with

more vibrant lives. And so it’s just starting to change how we think about what it means to be 60, 70 and

1. So that is, I think, on the societal level, something we hope As well as we’re starting to see some of that. And that is a huge implication on the business opportunities. Because from a consumer side of things,

this consumer has been ignored while older adults control two thirds of the net worth, at least in the U.S. less than 10 to 15 percent of marketing dollars goes to that

audience. And at some point, there will be a consumer opportunity for direct consumer marketing to an older

audience. It has not been a big focus of ours. It has not proven to be as commercially viable. Yet and then on the enterprise side,

I

think this

is going to be like most things around building a relationship when people are

younger, not waiting

till they

Officially older,

65 and heavy use of personalization and data.

This is a great opportunity for AgeTech to go

from talking about seniors as one group

to

really being able to subsegment

down different populations. And when I started the fund in 2020, I felt like the way people talked about seniors was there’s

basically two

populations, those that were independent and

well,

and those that were polychronic and sick.

And

that was the only

dividing line in terms of how people thought about the business opportunity

And

I, hope, and I’m seeing that businesses are getting a lot more sophisticated

that it’s about there’s so much segmentation to be

had in terms of

who the audience

is is today and

will grow to

be. so I would

probably, maybe it’s cause

I’m

a former

marketer. I always like to think about audience as really what’s happening in the future.

but the

technology

Keren,

as you

know, it’s going to move super

fast

It’s going to move fast on the life sciences side,

on the data

side, On the ability to harness your own data and personalize health.

All of this stuff is going to move

At a steeper slope than it has in the past 10 to 15 years.

And so I’m just assuming that’s

what’s going to happen. So let’s focus on the audience and making sure that they’re in the right place to engage and to lean into all of these innovations.

Keren Etkin: I love that. vision. I love that sort of that transition from a

youth obsessed society to an ageless society.

I wonder how marketers are going to market cosmetics to

us if they don’t make us feel bad about growing

old anymore.

What is that going to be like?

Abby Miller Levy: I think it’s, I do

believe it’s going to be

back

to

focusing

on,

How you feel

And making people feel

feel good at any age. And and that’s my hope, but listen, we have a lot of work to do as an industry, as a sub segment you and

I run in the same circles.

And one of the most amazing things I’d be curious to hear your point of view, but when I started this

and I started in

2019, but we launched the fund in 2020,

I

felt like every conference I went to every

environment, it was like the

group of 200 people that you

saw like, Oh, here we go again.

It’s our little AgeTech

family. And one of the most validating. Pieces of my work is four years

later, there are a couple of

venture funds dedicated to the topic of aging and longevity. The conferences are bigger. There are more founders. There are more enterprises thinking about this. There’s more collaboration between the nonprofit governmental and for profit sectors.

And people are frustrated. They’re like, okay, it’s go

time. So I think it’s

both that there’s more more I’d say soldiers fighting As well as I think more urgency. And so I don’t know how you feel about that, but that’s been my take.

Keren Etkin: I absolutely feel like

The sense of urgency increases year over year and also the ecosystem grows and I feel like, as you said, we haven’t seen, enough unicorns Or enough IPOs

to get, even more for people

excited about the space Because at the end of the day,

people

Want to make

money, whether they’re an entrepreneur

or VC,

And when we have more examples for hugely successful companies,

The the momentum will

accelerate Even more than it already has.

So

Abby,

Is there anything else that we haven’t spoken about that you would like to add?

Abby Miller Levy: Just that if there’s any entrepreneurs listening and you have a business or business idea, feel free to email [email protected].

And let’s continue to grow the ecosystem.

Keren Etkin: Thank you so much for joining me

on the podcast, Abby.

Abby Miller Levy: Great to see you.