Deskless workforce management platform Skedulo announced Wednesday it has raised $28 million in Series B backing, led by Microsoft venture capital arm M12. San Francisco-based Skedulo plans to use the funds to refine its offerings and forge further ties with home health clients — its largest category of customer.
Those efforts include the launch of an on-demand workforce management feature to help home health agencies adapt to the gig economy, Skedulo founder and CEO Matt Fairhurst told Home Health Care News.
“We very deliberately applied a high degree of focus to in-home care last year, and we’re continuing to double down on our efforts there as we’ve proven the success of that model,” he said. “I think home health represents a very unique opportunity for us as a platform.”
Skedulo currently works with more than 50 in-home health providers across Australia, New Zealand, North America and the United Kingdom. Overall, home health providers make up a little over 30% of Skedulo’s customer base, according to Fairhurst, noting that most of those clients are mid-sized to larger businesses with more than 50 employees.
Launched at the start of 2014, Skedulo helps coordinate, automate and optimize processes involved with managing a mobile workforce. That includes scheduling when and where workers provide services, in addition to managing time off and assisted with field responsibilities, such as updating a care plan or filling out an incident report.
“We want to make sure we’re fully encapsulating the process of not only manging the workforce and managing work — but also being the operating system for that workforce in the field,” Fairhurst said.
Globally, more than 2.7 billion workers are deskless, a group that includes an estimated 2.2 million home health care workers.
Employment in the U.S. home health care sector is expected to grow by 54% in coming years, compared to the average employment growth in all industries projected at 7%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Skedulo’s $28 million Series B round brings its total fundraising amount to $40.5 million. Blackbird and Costanoa Ventures also participated in the Series B round.
Skedulo’s on-demand ambitions
Skedulo plans to use its newly raised $28 million to develop its platform and make it more intuitive and automated. Additionally, the startup plans to more than double its headcount across four global offices.
Refining the platform also means enabling more integration with other systems, including electronic health records and billing functions.
There are even bigger plans ahead as well. Next month, Skedulo is officially announcing new features to help home health providers and other clients build on-demand and offered work models, Fairhurst said.
Essentially, the new features will help providers shift to a hybrid employment model, made up of a mix of a full-time, part-time, casual, contracted and on-demand workforce. An on-demand model will likely never take off completely in the home-based care space, he said.
“It’s not to say the in-home care industry is going to move to a gig economy. That’s absolutely not the case,” Fairhurst said.
Startups have attempted to disrupt the home-based care field with tech capabilities and on-demand models in the past with mixed results.
HomeHero, for example launched in 2013 and quickly raised a total of $23 million over the next two years. The startup — sometimes compared to Match.com for care delivery — matched families and caregivers. It closed up shop in 2017, citing difficulties operating under the W-2 employment model.
Honor is another tech company that initially attempted to be a new type of home care provider when it launched. It has since changed its business model by partnering with existing home care agencies.
“I think this is where others maybe have made mistakes in this area in the past,” Fairhurst said. “When you think about these blended and hybrid workforce models and opportunities like on-demand work … you can’t only do that. It has to complement an overall strategy for an in-home care provider.”
