Inside the AgeTech Collaborative: How AARP is Fueling Innovation | The AgeTech Podcast S4E16

Keren Etkin: Sasha and Aurelie, welcome to the show.

Sasha Spellman: Thank you for having us.

Aurelie Cornett: Yeah, to be here.

Keren Etkin: Thank you for joining. So it would be great if you could start with a short introduction of yourselves and the AgeTech Collaborative.

Aurelie Cornett: Yeah, I can start. So hi, everyone. I’m Aurelie Cornette. I’m the startup collaboration director for the AgeTech collaborative from AARP. so I focus primarily on identifying potential collaboration opportunities for the startups we work with in the AgeTech space, mainly by exploring new trends and in the longevity space, but also and most importantly, building the largest B to B community. Of investors, your VC, CVC, community enterprises test beds and other businesses that are interested in having an impact on AgeTech solutions, ultimately helping people live longer, happier and healthier lifespans. And yeah, I’ll turn it over to Sasha and then we can talk about our organization a little bit more.

Sasha Spellman: Yeah. And hi, I’m Sasha Spellman. And yeah, thanks again, Keren, for having us. Am the director of collaborative engagement for the AgeTech collaborative. That’s a lot of collaboratives. Essentially I manage the customer success Function for our team. So what we do is, Cultivate and deliver value to the participants in our ecosystem that stems from our early stage startups that come through our pitch competitions in our accelerator program, but also the participants joining from Aurelie’s side of the house, which are non startups of investors, testbeds, enterprises and business services. so. I have a team of account managers and a programming manager to make sure our community is getting they want out of AgeTech collaborative, but also, you know, finding the resources they need. So our participants have access to a platform that they have access to all year round. And thank you, Keren, for being one of our participants as well. And, and also access to a community. So we try to empower our participants to. Stay in the know of the latest in AgeTech access, you know, resources like the latest AgeTech research that AARP may be pushing out. We have year round virtual programming that we do throughout the year, as well as exclusive content with our blog that we do, as well as we have a newsletter every week and anything else that might come out. And then another key component of what we do is. what I like to call like white glove service connections across the ecosystem and communities. So really trying to figure out what are those high impact connections that could lead to tangible outcomes. So from a high level, that’s my role.

AARP

Aurelie Cornett: think that was the 2nd part of your question a nonprofit organization here in the U. S. We represent the interest of older adults. The social mission is to empower people to choose how they want to live as they age on. More specifically, Sasha and I will sit on the innovation arm of the organization.

So essentially, we support the social mission of the company identifying and focusing on innovation and technology and see where innovation and AgeTech can fill that gap and helping people live lives. So we aim to make aging easier for everyone. And so Sasha talked a little bit about the ecosystem and all the different things we do for them. But if we had to summarize it into two things if you will, we go about it in two ways. We’re an accelerator program. So Sasha mentioned working with early stage startups. We identify innovative solutions through pitch events organized throughout the year. We accelerate the technology. We have a top notch AgeTech accelerator program done virtually four times a year. Where we essentially help those early stage companies refine their solutions. We leveraged the decades of expertise on the 50 plus demographic that we have to help them really build solutions with empathy on. It’s really bespoke. We really try to meet them where they’re at. So if someone needs more UX design recommendations or help or assistance.

Others may need to have more in depth research and understanding of their audience. So we really try to help them there during those 8 weeks. We do wrap up the 8 weeks with some investment opportunities. It’s not automatic. But we do investments in the form of notes, SAFE notes. the last piece of what we do is the collaboration piece that Sasha talked about, where we bring all those stakeholders, the investors, the startups that graduated from the accelerator, the test beds, and we look for potential collaboration, matches, pilots, investments, partnerships, you name it, ultimately launching modern solutions to the marketplace.

Keren Etkin: unpack. And you very fairly recently got back from CES where the Collaborative has like a huge booth and it is really pushing forward the presence of AgeTech startups at CES and it’s arguably the best place to pitch your startup, in the world on the world’s largest stage.

What would you say are like the biggest success stories from the past year?

Sasha Spellman: Yeah, I can jump in there. So there’s a lot that we, you know, we’re grateful to have had a lot of success in 2024. Generally, since I guess, holistically since 2021, we’ve been very lucky to experience like really incredible growth. Now reached over 570 companies which I think is really a milestone that’s reflecting the demand for AgeTech solutions and, showing that there’s larger corporations that are wanting to work with startups in this space.

They want to become more knowledgeable in understanding the needs of older adults. And so we’re seeing this momentum start to build so that just the growth of the ecosystem, I think, is a general success. We’re seeing a growth an engagement in our community as well. So since Aurelie and her team have done such a great job of bringing on all these amazing non startups and then we have our accelerator team doing a great job vetting and finding the best age tech startups we can find. We’ve built up again my team doing customer success and we’ve just We’ve seen this growth of connections happening between our participants both on our platform and then also networking during our live events, like CES that you mentioned. We’re starting to see participants actively utilize the resources that we’re providing.

Not that they weren’t in the past, but it’s just there’s just a lot more activity happening on the platform. A lot more, you know, Just connections generally happening engaging during our events, speakers raising their hand, wanting to participate in panels and moderate conversations. And then we’re doing a lot in our blog as well. And we’re seeing that our we have a AgeTech directory on our platform. Use. It’s valuable to a tool at this point to help make those connections and drive collaboration. So generally, Growth and engagement has been a key success. Of the key initiatives and programs are accelerator program that Aurelie mentioned continues to be, amazing and get really great feedback from the startups that go through that, that program.

So, for anyone that’s interested, that could be listening, I would recommend any startups. Startup to apply for one of our pitch events on AgeTech collaborative dot org. There’s an events tab, and that’s the first step for any company to be eligible for anything that we do. The accelerator is kind of the second step after the pitch and then joining our ecosystem is The third step. But another some of the more like unique, impactful projects that we’ve done throughout the year. We had what we called the smart living showcase with one of our test beds. Thrive. Well, tech is a test bed in the collaborative. They helped with senior living operators to invest in structure and implement I.

T. And things like that. And so they work with the community locally out of D. C. called Asbury communities. And we actually launched a pilot that showcased a two bedroom apartment that was equipped with age tech solutions that are part of our portfolio who support a more connected and secure living environment.

So in mid October, we actually had older adults and residents do group tours through this apartment to engage with the technology, provide their feedback let us know whicAgeTechnologies are most interesting to them. And, you know, ideally, eventually some of these solutions will be part of the offerings that Asbury will offer to their residents. So that pilot was cool to see get off the ground. I think we had about seven or eight companies be part of that. And that is something that maybe we could grow to other parts of the what we do in the next year to come. And then I talked a lot about connections and collaborations throughout the year.

We’re just also seeing success stories of, actual outcomes happening. So for example, we’re always striving to get more pilots off the ground with our test beds and our startups. So one of our startups, AdvoSense, you may be familiar with them. They have sensor technology for incontinence.

They Piloted with United Church Homes in what was like what I think is kind of a novel program. I haven’t heard it anywhere else. They’re doing a two week long entrepreneur in residence program where the founder actually lives At the senior living community itself and works alongside the front sides, front line staff,

Aurelie Cornett: Silence.

Sasha Spellman: To, you know, learn what their pain points are, obviously learn from the residents, what, what tech is resonating with them. They get that direct feedback, which is gold for those startups. And so, yeah, they were there for 2 weeks and I believe United Church Homes plans to do that continuously throughout this year of more entrepreneurs coming directly on site with them. So. Those are some examples that I wanted to share.

Keren Etkin: That’s awesome. And I believe that Brookdale had an entrepreneur in residence program a few years ago. I’m not sure that’s still active though. And I was definitely before COVID.

Sasha Spellman: Yeah. I’m hoping to see more of it. I think it’s a great idea.

Keren Etkin: So basically the way to get into the AgeTech Collaborative is to apply to one of your pitch competitions. What is the eligibility criteria for someone to even be accepted to pitch?

Aurelie Cornett: I’m happy to answer this one. So those guidelines are more roughly something we refer to. They’re not you know, a whole lot more. Harsh cookie cutter you know, type of a frame. But essentially we’re looking for companies that have a solution in the AgeTech space. And we define AgeTech as any product, service, or solution sitting at the nexus of longevity and technology.

So it’s healthcare, but not only it can be FinTech, it can be ar, vr, it can be mobility, transportation. If you’re able to articulate how your solution is impacting the way people can age gracefully and improving their lifespan it can absolutely fit within the AgeTech definition. Typically, we like to see companies that have more than a prototype.

So, products already available to market some traction. You don’t need to have a lot of customers, but one big pilot could also be seen as traction to us. Anything, you know, at the ideation phase might be a little too early for us to consider, not because we don’t want to work with them, just they may not, be able to take advantage of the resources we put at their disposal. If you’re looking for investment stages, roughly seeds to series a, it’s been our sweet spot for companies to apply. There is a form. So, you know, if you are not a hundred percent sure whether or not you fit within those guardrails, just feel free to apply. You just follow the prompts give it a try.

We definitely have had companies a little earlier pre-seed and others a little bit further along because we believed in the technology. So I would recommend everybody to apply, many apply. We have a pretty thorough vetting process, but we do look at every single application.

Keren Etkin: And do companies have to be based in the United States or are you open to global applicants?

Aurelie Cornett: That’s a great question. So being a you know, American organization, we tend to look at or, you know, startups that are in the United States or North America. We do have a few startups that are based outside of the US. So as long as you have any operations or a partner or a dealer within North America, we would certainly consider working

Sasha Spellman: Yeah. And I’ll just add that,

Aurelie Cornett: with

Sasha Spellman: some of our pitches have a

Aurelie Cornett: you.

Sasha Spellman: Um, if there’s like prize money involved, but most of our pitches are like general open mic themed like, generally, are you solving for adults and are you in the AgeTech industry? And. you know, we recommend less than a million dollars in revenue and less than 15 million dollars investments is general guidelines. But as Aurelie was saying, like, we have, you know, gone beyond that, or, know, there’s some wiggle room there, but that’s what we like to share is kind of starting eligibility criteria.

Keren Etkin: Awesome. So what were some of your key takeaways from CES this year? What got you personally excited when you went on the show floor, maybe outside the HD Collaborative booth?

Aurelie Cornett: Yeah, do you want to go? Sasha? I have a lot to say, but,

Sasha Spellman: Go ahead. No, no, take it.

Aurelie Cornett: So terms of context, the AgeTech collaborative has been to CES for several years now, Sasha was at year 5 or year 6. I’m losing track of the number of years

Sasha Spellman: Five. Yeah.

Aurelie Cornett: Five. So we’ve been going for a few years, but it definitely this past CES, we had one of the largest footprint.

And you know, I want to say we really took center stage within the digital health and smart living area of the show. So we, you know, really elevated AgeTech, which was one of the goals of us. Coming to see us showcasing the depth and breadth of what the AgeTech category can do for people. But you’re right.

There were a lot of conversations. And I think this year more than any other years outside of just the Venetian, which is where we were located with the digital health and AgeTech categories were located. It seems like. Longevity solutions were really peppered throughout the show floor. I think it was, and also we saw some AgeTech solutions from industries.

You don’t typically think of doing AgeTech solutions. I was about to mention L’Oreal. I believe they had a a product called the cell bioprint. So a device that analyzes the skin. It’s calculating your biological age. And you know, if you have any skin issues and it’s recommending solutions based on your unique skin type, I think we’re shying away from just, you know, Oh, this is a beauty for you to mask aging, but Hey, embrace aging, embrace your wrinkles, and this is the product that’s going to work best.

So this is the first time I seen or heard anything along those lines. So lots of conversations happen. If I had to resume of the main takeaways, I would take away that would say three themes kind of stood out to me in the longevity space. The first one was any smart living of smart home solutions.

And that’s in continuity. with the 2024 trends, we’ve been noticing there’s adoption, there’s budget. People are, you know, at home and looking to stay longer at home. And they’re already used to having Wi Fi, cell phone devices, and they start having other smart home devices at home. So we’re seeing a logical continuity in devices. You know, preventative care at home through home sensors or other health device. We had miicare in our space that was showcasing solutions like that any smart medication dispensing tool. So anything that’s helping people care of all their needs at home, whether it’s health care or preventative health, we start seeing a lot of those solutions.

And so definitely that was the big a big focus in the area, the other category or. Innovation that I think really stood out this year is robotics. And more specifically, the poly functionality of robots. So you think robots from a health care standpoint, as an example you know, the exoskeleton to help the recovery process, or we had a company in our space called Biomodem.

They developed intelligent robots. Assisting devices to help people walk easier. So if you were recovering from an accident or had some sort of disability now you have tools that are going to be there to train, help your muscles, build muscles, help walk, be more independent. So it’s giving us a glimpse into the future of what caregiving can look like and health care could look like in the near future.

That was really exciting. But then if you look at Roblox in terms of companions, so now you start having, The social aspect of what robots can do on stage in our booth, we we had the honor of welcoming a robot called Mirokai from Enchanted Tools. it was able to have real life, real time conversation.

It was leveraging artificial intelligence and chat GPT. So it was interacting with the audience almost real time. They’re piloting through hospitals right now. The robot can also carry, deliver medication, but also have conversations. So, it was. It was fascinating Ageless innovation. They had a robotic pet. you start seeing how robust. really play an active role and part in our lives. We saw a lot of those at CES and they really were a talk the talk of the show, the last or trend I’m seeing, and I know it’s a buzzword right now, but artificial intelligence really has an opportunity here to deliver customized experience for the end user. So if you think about. to wrap up on this, how Samsung Health was collaborating with us in our space, our booth had different experiences with different personas, so you could experience different point solutions based on either a persona, your personal needs, so if you’re an active ager, or if you’re someone dealing with early stage of cognitive declines, different solutions would speak to you. But what good is it if all those different solution point do not talk to each other? And so with samsung project, they have this samsung, samsung health. Sorry, they had the project care hub kind of wrapping up our experience showing how with AI and through a platform, they were able to consolidate all this data from all those different point solutions. make it a holistic view for the person using the devices, but also providing actionable insights for the care for the caregiving team really helping, alleviate and a mil and improve outcomes. So you started to see how there’s a lot of potential with artificial intelligence that we just saw open and open ai. They just rolled out operator I don’t know if you saw this. Now it’s an AI agent keep. But all of handling tasks like a human would. So making your appointments doing tasks for you exploring the web like a human would do so opportunities are seem really sky’s the limit. And for us to see the ability of maybe some of the hard parts of caregiving and being able to give back valuable time for the caregivers because you can leverage tools like the one samsung project care hub or other AI tools as a personal assistant and While giving a very bespoke experience for the person that is experiencing a need of care, I think is absolutely wonderful.

So these are my main takeaways. There was certainly a lot more going on, but I thought those three themes really stood out to me.

Sasha Spellman: And I’ll just add one other key thing that we did at CES in line with some of the, like, Samsung’s one of our enterprises. Another one that we collaborated with at the show was Panasonic Well we did the Panasonic Well Family Challenge or Wellness Challenge, I believe it was called. really collaborating to find a holistic wellness solution that

could help of the family improve their overall well being.

So that could be in solutions that could improve your sleep or encourage more activity. It could be things like a game that helps connect people in the household together or something that helps ease mental burden for those that are doing those caregiving tasks. So we helped with kind of the process of sourcing companies for that.

And it was actually up to a million dollars in prize money that, you know, Panasonic was managing of that component. And so, there were five winners and luckily two of our companies were part of that, which was great to see, but the winning company was one named hearth, which I haven’t had a lot of time to dive into yet, but that was exciting to see some funding going towards companies in this space.

And we’re just starting to see a large enterprise. Players these products and creating these opportunities for companies solving for older adults, which is great to see.

Keren Etkin: Absolutely. And speaking of funding, that is one of the challenges that early stage startups face. And we touched upon this briefly, but it would be great if you could elaborate on how AgeTech Collaborative startups can get your assistance to access more funding resources.

Sasha Spellman: Yeah. So we do provide opportunities for funding through AgeTech collaborative itself. We’re not a fund by any means, but we do provide opportunities for small investment. That’s after the Accelerator portion of what we do. so there’s that opportunity. And then we have a whole category of investors that are part of our ecosystem.

So Aurelie and her team are doing an amazing job of finding like who has capital to deploy who is, and it also be, Companies that are funds that are new and raising funds, but want to be more knowledgeable in the space. They want to just be in the know of startups and start building their network there.

So, the work that my team does is more on that side of the house where we’re connecting startups with investors for potential funding opportunities. It is a challenge, as you mentioned, to get some of that growth capital. But I’m optimistic this year that we’ll see more stories in that area. And there’s of course, the, the non dilutive grant opportunities that you know, we all know that National Institute on Aging team, they are amazing. And then there’s also some like local opportunities in states like Massachusetts that provide, they do challenges throughout the year that provide grant money as well as placement in what they call sandboxes across clinical environments. Group I’m referring to is MassDigitalHealth, that’s a test, but in the collaborative and then there’s also like A2 Collective, which is in collaboration with the National Institute on Aging. You may know them, Keren but they also provide they do a challenge with grant money and placement and what they call a collaboratory, or it’s like an academic institution at I think it’s Penn, Hopkins, and Mass AI tech. So it is, you know, we’re constantly trying to figure out ways to provide opportunities for that, and I think. We’re starting to see more more progress there in terms of funding, I don’t know, or get anything else to add. There,

Aurelie Cornett: no that’s great. I think you hit the nail on the head. The beauty of the work Sasha and her team is doing and the entire department is doing, we’re really there to help companies scale and grow. So you leverage them, utilize them as your partners and can You know, see beyond just, Hey, we connected you with one investor type.

There’s a an area of different opportunities. If one door is closed, that doesn’t mean that there might not be 10 others. That would be the right fit for you from a biz dev perspective. When me and my team go outside and try to you know, educate people on the work we’re doing or investors, the VCC, VCs, we really look at articulating also how this industry. is growing so quickly and is so needed. And it’s easy for people to resonate. Everybody has an aging parent or has experienced an aging parent. Family member, they’re thinking about themselves. So I think on a human level, people completely resonate with that, but then we can also articulate some of the opportunities with the, like I said, the research that AARP puts together the longevity space currently domestically and internationally is evaluated at 45 trillion in economic activity and population is aging.

That’s no secret. So if you look at the next 10 to. 15 years, this number is going to triple. So we’ll also try to show for, you know, businesses and also investors that there’s a lot of opportunities and solutions in that space. investment takes, they take time for companies to, and investors to really build a relationship with the founder, with the technology.

A lot of them really want to also be partners with the with the startup. So they just don’t want to throw their money. I think we saw a little bit of that Behavior in 2020. And then it became back to a more normal landscape in terms of investment opportunities, but the companies are looking, the investors are looking, they’re really leveraging the collaborative as well to keep the pulse on the innovation. And we really have I don’t want to say an easy time to convince them that this is the industry to be in, but they really are genuinely interested in diving into all the different, Aspects of AgeTech. So it’s a good time to be in this industry, really,

Keren Etkin: Absolutely. I always say that this is the most exciting industry to be in, in this day and age. The intersection of technology and aging. Yes, it is fun. And everyone, everyone like is super supportive of one another. So it’s a really, it’s a great place to be at both personally and professionally. So I wonder, we’re recording this conversation in late January 2025. What’s what’s in store for the AgeTech Collaborative in 2025 and beyond? What can we expect?

Sasha Spellman: yeah, I can jump in. So, you know, continuing to source the best and brightest AgeTech start so we can find is always going to be a priority for us. So, some of the areas that I think will be important for us and also ones that I’m passionate about personally solutions that are in the cognitive or brain health space. mild cognitive impairment can affect 10 million people in the US. And so we have a number of companies in that area. We’re doing a lot of programming on health, cognitive health. That’s one that we’ll continue to focus on. Women’s health is one that’s It’s near and dear to my heart, and we’re starting to see a lot more solutions in this space and also join our portfolio.

So, 90 percent of women, 35 plus experience one or more menopause symptoms. That was from an AARP report from 2024. We had a company called Perry at our booth at CES. You’ve kind of with them Keren, but they’re a digital wellness platform that helps support women through perimenopause and beyond.

A really cool one. We also had ember labs, which is a wearable. I’m sure you’re, you’re familiar with them. But they have A way to heat or cool your body by the push of a button on on the wearable itself if you’re experiencing hot flashes or, or could also help improve your sleep. so women’s health will be 1 area that I think we’ll continue to focus on.

And then, you know, health, of course, like, managing chronic conditions will be important as well. We’re going to continue to build and grow value for the age tech ecosystem. We may introduce. So we’re going to be focusing on some of these new things throughout the year

That practice is there to help.

So I think we’ll start to see a lot more usage of that. And then our events will continue to be a cornerstone of of all that we do. So we actually started our own events producing our own events. So we have the ATC summit coming up in the spring. We would love to see you there, Keren, if you’re ever able to make it. I know it’s a long trip for you. But yeah, that’ll be in the spring. And that’s like for our ecosystem specifically. To get together, we started doing these things called age tech one on ones, which it’s kind of like speed dating, but not really. It’s just quick, rapid meetings that you can have with others across the ecosystem.

So trying to help support more of those funding challenges that we talked about are inspiring more pilots, or it could be just founder to founder connections as well. So we have the A. T. C. Summit. We’ll have yeah. Excuse me. We’ll have CES again is always going to be a strategic event. As Aurelie was talking about, that’s the Technically January 2026, but we actually, we’ve already booked our space for next year and we work all year long on it.

It’s a year long project. So that’s going to be a high priority for us. And we also go to a number of events and bring companies to think to the event. Events like five in February will be at HLTH in October. And then of course we love going to Mary Furlong’s events. So we’ll plan to be at her venture summit in June as well.

So right now that’s kind of our slate of what we’re focusing on and getting companies one into the ecosystem as well as. And you know, helping them get a platform at some of these

Keren Etkin: Sounds like you have your hands full.

Aurelie Cornett: We’re busy.

Keren Etkin: Business is good.

Aurelie Cornett: That’s great.

Keren Etkin: So that was actually my last question. Is there anything else you would like to add? Any call to action to any startups or entrepreneurs watching or listening to this podcast?

Aurelie Cornett: If you want to learn more about all the work we do you’re looking to apply whether you’re a startup or a non startup, you can go on our website at techcollaborative. org and then the apply today or apply now section it will kind of explain a little bit all the different Type of companies that are part of the ecosystem.

Select the one that resonates the most with what you’re looking to do and who you are. And then a member of our team will be happy to reach out and answer any questions you may have.

Sasha Spellman: Yeah. And I’ll just say thank you, Keren, for all the work that you do in this space. You know, your age tech market map is, is such a valuable resource. I always refer to it throughout every year. I look forward to seeing what, when it comes out and also your book The AgeTech Revolution. I, once I got that, I was highlighting a million things all throughout the book.

And so, yeah, thank you for all that you do for this industry in this space.

Aurelie Cornett: Thanks for

Keren Etkin: you.

Aurelie Cornett: us.

Keren Etkin: Thank you so much for your kind words and thank you for joining me on the show today. It was an absolute pleasure chatting with you and I can’t wait to see you. Where the AgeTech collaborative brings the ecosystem in 2025, because you know that when you know the saying that a rising tide floats all boats, and I feel like the AARP’s AgeTech collaborative is that a huge boat and basically helps like create ripple waves that push forward the entire ecosystem.

So, I’m very excited about all the work that you’re doing.

Aurelie Cornett: Thank you. So are we.

Keren Etkin: Thank you.