OnCare closes £550,000 Seed to digitise the care industry

London-based software company OnCare has raised a £550,000 Seed to develop its technology platform for social care.

Backers of OnCare include Founders Factory, the incubator where the business was born out of, as well as Angel investors Alex Chesterman (founder and CEO of ZPG Plc) and Simon Franks (founder of LoveFilm and Redbus Group).

The cash injection will be used to develop the software and grow the company internationally and within the UK.

OnCare, which was founded in 2017 as part of an incubation collaboration between Founders Factory and Aviva, works with more than 20 care agencies to help them keep a digital record of patients. The company claims this helps to reduce the amount of paper records, which can save money and enable care workers to spend more time with their clients.

The app-based platform acts as a digital reporting tool, allowing care providers to keep track of their visits and the care they provided, for who and when.

Alistair Cohen, CEO of OnCare, explained why his company is necessary: “Social care represents a huge opportunity, with £20bn spent in the sector every year and over 1.3 million care workers in the UK alone. For too long, social care has been subject to over-priced, poorly-designed software and we don’t believe that’s right.

He also spoke of the investment news: “With this investment, we can make sure that we support and strengthen social care in the UK and beyond, helping providers to use their money more efficiently and continue to provide an amazing service to our loved ones, and our future selves.”

The software also sends real-time alerts to care providers about their clients, and text message updates and a digitised view of the care records to the family or friends of the person in care.

OnCare also claims this helps with companies’ GDPR compliance, as they replace unreliable paper-based records, stored across multiple locations and filing cabinets, with a single searchable, secure digital record-keeping system.

The company charges a per care workers per month for access to the app.

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