HomeHero grabs $20M, makes key hires to expand platform

by Patrick Hechinger
June 30, 2015

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HomeHero announced a $20 million Series A round this morning led by Graham Holdings with participation from Social+Capital Partnership, Tencent Holdings Limited and The Launch Fund, Inc., bringing their total to $23 million since their seed round last year.

The funding will bolster the Santa Monica-based company’s expansion into new markets, beginning with San Diego and San Francisco. With the expansion, HomeHero is also looking to make key new hires.

“Things are going really well in the Los Angeles market,” co-founder Mike Townsend said. “The plan is to take what we’ve learned and duplicate our playbook in new markets.”

HomeHero hosts an online marketplace of caregivers for families in search of affordable in-home care. Using thorough background checks and video profiles, the site has created a trustworthy reputation that has doubled their number of shifts since March and solidified them as the market leader in the $40 billion in-home care space.

“We moved down from San Francisco to start HomeHero in LA because Southern California has the largest population, behind Florida, of seniors,” added Townsend. “There was a whole ecosystem right here, right underneath us.”

After the failure of their first company, FlowTab, Townsend and co-founder Kyle Hill embraced their mistakes, turning it into an immensely popular TechCrunch article and speaking sessions at events like FailCon.

“We now have a huge emphasis on transparency, everything we do is in public channels and folders,” Townsend said. “That creates such an awesome culture where people feel content and safe which helps us attract great people.”

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