The Helper Bees: Why We Invested

By Sophia Friedman

There are over 46M adults over age 65 living in the US today, and that number is expected to grow to almost 90M by 2050. The global population is aging at unprecedented rates -- older people make up an increasing share of the world’s population. This phenomenon is more pronounced in the United States than anywhere else in the world. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that older adults (people over 65) are expected to outnumber children under the age of 18 by 2034. Given the speed with which the US population is aging, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic which has highlighted health risks associated with institutionalization, there are increasing pressures to enable adults to age in place and keep older adults out of senior living facilities. 

Solution

The Helper Bees (THB) partners with Long-Term Care Insurance carriers and Medicare Advantage health plans to provide quality care and appropriate tools to keep older adults independent, healthy and living at home longer. The Helper Bees strives to help older adults age in place successfully and does so by addressing the ‘social determinants of aging’: the conditions in the environments where people age that affect a wide range of health outcomes. The Helper Bees has developed a complete regulatory and administrative platform that blends claims processing, provider recruitment, and provider credentialing with the member-facing aging-in-place marketplace, aggregating all in-home care and support services into one platform. The platform’s direct impact is increased member satisfaction, improved health outcomes, and reduced claims costs and institutionalization rates.

Why We Invested

By 2040, 80 million Americans will be over the age of 65. 40 million individuals will need long-term care, and 90% of these will want to remain at home as they age. Today’s demographic shifts are changing consumer demands and placing unique pressures on the payors of long-term care. These payors, including Medicare Advantage and Long-Term Care Insurers, will need to focus on improving the social determinants of aging in order to improve care delivery to older adults. The Helper Bees addresses this market opportunity by providing a comprehensive aging-in-place platform to allow payors to tap into provider networks that enable older adults to age at home more seamlessly and successfully, thus resulting in better health outcomes at lower costs.

The Helper Bees aggregates various solutions related to the aging process into one to provide a single point of entry through which patients or caregivers can manage their own care. While point solutions exist to address various fragmented portions of the aging process, The Helper Bees is unique in that it consolidates these solutions into one platform that manages both the services themselves as well as claims processing, thus removing friction from the aging process. The Helper Bees’ team has proven themselves to be a strong leaders and well versed in understanding the unique payor environment related to Long-Term Care Insurance and Medicare Advantage. The team has a clear focus on improving the aging process for older adults and understands the importance of making healthcare more equitable and accessible to improve healthcare for all older adults regardless of socioeconomic class or demographics.

Impact

We believe The Helper Bees has the ability to make a positive impact by providing a solution that improves the aging process for older adults by focusing on the social determinants of aging. The Helper Bees has already demonstrated a meaningful reduction in the institutionalization of seniors – its Care Concierge product has resulted in a significant reduction in institutionalization to date. Further, The Helper Bees improves the process of aging in older adults in two ways:

1. By enabling individuals to more easily understand and take advantage of their supplemental benefits

2. By managing payment and reimbursement for these services, which individuals might not have the cash flow to support, therefore making these services more accessible to aging individuals

The Helper Bees reaches customers in all 50 US states of varying socioeconomic classes, races and ethnicities. The Helper Bees is in the process of expanding into Medicare Advantage, launching with its first customer in 2022. Medicare Advantage plans are often focused on chronically ill populations, which includes patients that are also eligible for Medicaid coverage – these patients are dual eligible, meaning the beneficiaries quality for both Medicare and Medicaid benefits. We anticipate dual eligible members will be a critical area of focus for The Helper Bees as the Company expands to partner with more Medicare Advantage customers. As the company continues to scale and expand into Medicare Advantage, we are excited by The Helper Bee’s opportunity to expand access to underserved populations and to improve the aging process for all.

Slang: Why We Invested

By Ander Iruretagoyena and Tasha Seitz

In today’s society there are over 59 zettabytes of information. Despite its impressive size, the fact that this global knowledge base is primarily encoded in English (i.e., 90%+ of scientific research is published in English) means that the over 6.6B non-English speakers have limited access to technical know-how, innovation, and new developments that occur worldwide. For expanding businesses, young graduates, scientists, researchers, and immigrants, English proficiency is an essential gateway to economic opportunity as it broadens horizons, lowers barriers, and speeds information exchange. As more and more multinational companies like Airbus, Samsung, Daimler-Chrysler, etc., mandate English as the common corporate language, the incentives to learn English have never been greater, and the demand for talent with English proficiency far outpaces supply.  However, access to acquiring professionally relevant English skills has been persistently limited by a lack of tailored, flexible and affordable upskilling resources.

In the United States, which has always been a polyglot nation, low levels of English proficiency are the most significant risk factor for underemployment. In a recent study examining the costs of untapped talent, it was found that within the immigrant population, those who reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” were five times more likely to be in low-skilled jobs than those who speak English natively. As another data point, the 20 million Americans with limited English proficiency who comprise over 10% of the working age population in the US, earn 25-40% less than their English proficient counterparts.

Although there are many English-learning solutions on the market, traditional curricula cannot address the professional knowledge gap because they typically only teach conversational English or generic “business” English. 

Solution

Slang provides an adaptive, digital, ML-driven language-learning platform focused on professional English. This groundbreaking software tailors language learning to specific roles and professional vocabulary (e.g., accounting, maintenance, customer service) each of which may require a different level of emphasis on writing, speaking, reading and listening skills. Its innovative, learner-centric approach encompasses every domain of specialized English and provides meaningful access to global knowledge. For prices as low as $6/month, a Slang subscription makes specialized English much more accessible to students and workers in low- to middle-income categories. Organizations that might, in the past, have reserved English training for those in top management due to the high costs of domain-specific in-person classes and tutoring, can now expand a catalytic benefit to all individuals. The company is currently targeting Latin American markets, specifically Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, with plans to expand to the US market.

Why We Invested

English language learning is a $15B market in the Americas and $98B worldwide. In Slang, we saw a large opportunity, a company armed with a unique and defensible competitive advantage, and a mission-oriented team led by Diego Villegas. Diego is a non-native English speaker from Colombia. Prior to founding Slang, he was the founder and CEO of MASA, a Colombia-based technical services business that grew to 5,000 employees and $200M in revenues and was acquired by a European based-multinational. In the post-acquisition integration, Diego saw many of his employees get laid off because of their lack of English proficiency, which motivated him and Kamran Khan, an MIT-trained AI expert, to found Slang.

The focus on professional English differentiates Slang from the myriad of general language solutions in the market. Slang is architected and designed to rapidly deploy new knowledge domains and languages.  While the initial curriculum was designed to teach English to Spanish speakers, the company was, in a matter of weeks, able to quickly add support for Portuguese speakers in order to launch in the Brazilian market. Additionally, the team is focused on user experience and committed to positively impacting the economic well-being of workers, which has driven outsized NPS scores relative to industry averages. 

Impact

We believe that Slang has the ability to remove the barriers preventing many low-  moderate-income workers from accessing career opportunities within the knowledge economy. Slang’s professional English solution should drive increased upward mobility and higher employability, along with higher productivity and career-related knowledge in three main ways:

1. Expansion of access to knowledge: as workers’ English proficiency improves, they are able to access a wider range of high-quality content, including training and professional development courses, technical and reference manuals, and scientific research. 

2. Leveling the playing field for a global workforce: as English has become the lingua franca for business, improving the professional English skills of workers enables businesses of all sizes to participate more effectively in the global economy and drive better economic outcomes for workers, businesses, and countries.

3. Narrowing the knowledge gap between employee classes at the companies they serve: the affordability, flexibility, and specificity of Slang’s solution results in more training options even for blue-collar or nonexecutive roles, which traditionally don’t have access to English training.

Better Money Better World Podcast interviews Jessica Droste Yagan

Impact Engine's CEO Jessica Droste Yagan was recently interviewed on the Better Money Better World podcast by Impact Capital Managers.

She shared with host Daniel Pianko how leading sustainable sourcing strategies while working at McDonalds helped shape her investment philosophy: "Anything can be broken down into its component humans and component parts, and made better."

Plus, Jessica offers advice for next year's business school grads and anyone else who want to make a real impact.

Listen to the episode below, or on iTunes.

Workit Health: Why We Invested

By: Priya Parrish, Ander Iruretagoyena

There are an estimated 48M Americans that are addicts across Alcohol Use Disorder (“AUD”, 19M), Opioid Use Disorder (“OUD”, 3M), and Substance Abuse Disorder (“SUD”, 26M). This ongoing epidemic has caused drug overdose deaths to triple since 1990 with a 600% increase in opioid-related overdose deaths in the last decade alone. Today 1 in 4 deaths is attributable to these problems and it costs the U.S. economy over $600 billion every year. Perhaps most tragically, due to the high costs, social stigmas and embarrassment, only 4% or 2M of those suffering from an abuse disorder actually seek treatment. Typical options for treatment include traditional inpatient and outpatient treatments that are costly and inaccessible. On the other hand, most digital solutions lack the comprehensive treatment steps necessary to achieve results for patients.

Solution

Workit Health (“Workit”) offers an on-demand, end-to-end virtual solution for addiction treatment that includes all the key components of evidence-based care: intake / consultations, tele-counseling, tele-nursing, home drug testing, tele-group work, courses, prescriptions, and content. The company’s user-centric design and scalable technology successfully intervenes and changes members’ behaviors before a crisis results, while avoiding the high costs, stigmas and embarrassment that prevents patients from seeking treatment. Workit’s model has proven effective for patients with a 90% retention and adherence rate compared to a 39% industry average. The program is also accessible, with traditional inpatient and outpatient treatments costing ~7x and ~34x more than Workit.

Why We Invested

Workit’s industry leader status is driven by its intentionally accessible and evidence-based treatment that attracts commercial health plans and Medicare/Medicaid. The company’s retention & adherence rates and high customer satisfaction rates (68 NPS) are driving impressive growth in revenue per member, patient membership, and high LTV/CAC ratios. Workit is currently in 10 states and plans to use this capital raise to facilitate national expansion while remaining independent. In the 5+ years we have known Workit (IE Ventures I initially invested in Workit in 2016), this female-led executive team (Robin McIntosh & Lisa Mclaughlin) have more than proven themselves and brings prior entrepreneurial experience, expertise in healthcare, personal experiences with addiction and have successfully built the company with an impact-driven competitive moat. Since inception, their core focus has been on outcomes and to provide a user experience in-tune with patients’ needs.

Impact

With Workit, we believe that a platform that provides dynamic tailored content plus access to on demand coaching & medical care, will lead to a reduction in use of narcotics or alcohol for individuals who have addictive behaviors, leading to better health outcomes and a lower overall cost of healthcare. A 2019 longitudinal study showed that 67% of Workit patients reported reduction in usage and 87.6% an increased quality of life. Workit’s app is highly rated with a 4.7 rating with 500+ reviews and 9 out of every 10 customers would recommend Workit to a friend. As the company undergoes national expansion, we are excited that the company will have increased access to more real-time retention data and that retention is directly tied to revenues, marrying financial and impact returns.

Zero Waste Recycling: Why We Invested

By Chris Wu

Global waste generation is expected to increase 70 percent by 2050, faster than any other environmental pollutant, which is why UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 aims to substantially reduce waste generation through reduction, recycling and reuse. The International Solid Waste Association estimates that when all waste management actions are considered, the waste sector could cut up to 15% of GHG emissions globally. In response, companies like Samsung, Apple and Subaru are increasingly setting ambitious waste reduction and landfill diversion goals as part of their corporate sustainability plans. Enabling the circular economy by reusing and recycling as much material and waste as possible is an important component of implementing an effective corporate waste management plan, but it can be difficult and complex for companies to execute a holistic strategy given that waste is tied to virtually every aspect of a company’s operations. 

Solution

Zero Waste Recycling (“ZWR”) is an industrial services and recycling business offering outsourced waste stream management services to manufacturing operations in the Southeastern U.S. ZWR is a full-service, one-stop solution provider helping manufacturers recycle or divert up to 100% of their operational waste. They provide a variety of environmental services for their corporate clients including onsite waste collection and sorting, 24/7 waste transportation and hauling, and recycling of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, plastic, cardboard, and paper. While 75% of America’s waste stream is recyclable, companies also need solutions to help manage the remaining solid waste that is non-recyclable. ZWR offers their clients the ability to convert this waste into energy, which is considered a renewable energy source. ZWR also owns and operates their own solidification pits, which means they are able to accept non-hazardous liquid sludge waste from their clients and mix it with water and a binding agent to form hardened solid blocks. Once solidified, they can then be shipped offsite to waste-to-energy facilities. 

Why We Invested

ZWR has a proven leadership team made up of industry veterans who have successfully built and sold two recycling operations. They have demonstrated strong customer satisfaction and competitive differentiation, as demonstrated by their multi-year contracts with several blue-chip corporates. We are also excited about the multiple dimensions of impact that this investment offers. The company itself has a clear focus or mission on environmental sustainability and is riding strong industry tailwinds driven by the increase in zero waste corporate sustainability goals. There is also a compelling social impact for ZWR’s employees; our investment supports an employee ownership transaction via an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (“ESOP”). The transaction effectively transfers ownership to ALL employees of ZWR at no cost to employees. In addition to potential for wealth generation typically unattainable for most employees, ESOP companies have also shown evidence of greater job stability and worker productivity. If you’re interested in learning more about employee ownership as an emerging impact thesis, you can check out the article my colleague Priya Parrish recently wrote about closing the wealth gap with alternative ownership structures.   

Impact

Environmental Sustainability: ZWR helps manufacturing companies meet their landfill diversion goals and extend the useful life of materials in their waste stream. Almost all of ZWR’s clients have commitments related to sustainability and waste diversion. ZWR’s nested employee approach, where ZWR employees are embedded onsite daily at their client’s facilities, has a significant impact on their ability to achieve these outcomes more quickly and effectively. For example, ZWR has already helped one of their manufacturing clients recycle over 500 tons of waste, conserve over 350,000 kWh of energy, and divert over 2,000 cubic yards of waste from landfill. Their long-term partnerships and full-service capabilities can also support the adoption of more aggressive sustainability goals over time. By reducing the overall amount of waste that goes into landfills, they are reducing their client’s costs associated with waste disposal which offsets the additional expense of sending their non-recyclable waste to be recovered as energy (the next preferred solution in the EPA waste hierarchy after reduction, reuse, and recycling).

Economic Opportunity: Wealth inequality continues to grow in the US as economic gains accrue to the holders of capital rather than the labor providers. There has been renewed focus nationally on wages to address income inequality, however that does not address the “Wealth Gap” - 69% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. Employees that participate in an ESOP have been shown to have 92% higher median household net wealth and 2.5x greater retirement accounts than non-employee owners. Over 90% of ZWR’s employee base are individuals from underrepresented groups and come from low-to-moderate income (LMI) households. ZWR employees are ultimately expected to have an average ESOP account balance that is greater than 3x their annual salary, a clear indication that the ESOP structure can enable significant wealth accumulation for employees and allows them to share in the value creation of the company.

HourWork: Why We Invested

By Ander Iruretagoyena and Tasha Seitz

There are 80 million hourly workers in the US, representing 56.7% of the workforce, of which 15 million work in the restaurant industry. Despite these large numbers, SMBs and employers with shift workers are understaffed 50% of the time and they bear over $155B in costs of finding, retaining and training hourly workers. Besides these material costs, severe understaffing can lead to overworked employees, who tend to suffer from higher levels of stress, leading to decreased productivity, increased turnover, and higher incidences of workplace accidents. Workers themselves are struggling with a plethora of issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic including confusing job application processes and declines in job stability, safety and work satisfaction. 

Former workers represent an important opportunity to combat these challenges. More than 60% of hourly workers leave their jobs on good terms, 50% are interested in picking up shifts to earn supplemental income, and another 15% are interested in being rehired into full-time or part-time roles. Hiring former employees means workers can be productive on day one.

Solution

HourWork’s initial product is a network of hourly workers for the restaurant industry, allowing employers to reach and engage former employees and applicants to fill existing part-time and full-time roles as well as picking up shifts to generate supplemental income. Its SaaS workforce solution helps managers achieve their labor goals by reducing costs, improving compliance, and increasing engagement. 

In addition, HourWork plans to build out stackable certifications to enable workers to build their skills through on-the-job training and improve their earning potential. Furthermore, by granting workers the ability to provide reviews of their former workplaces, HourWork is creating an opportunity for owners and managers to improve work culture and environments. HourWork’s vision is the liquid universal workforce designed to save the American Dream for the 80 million shift-based workers in the US.

Why We Invested

Staffing challenges are a top priority for restaurant owners/operators, and a shortage of workers is leading restaurants and other small businesses to close or limit their capacity because they do not have enough employees to serve the resurging demand. Furthermore, although HourWork has achieved impressive initial traction within the QSR category , there is significant opportunity to expand beyond QSR to fast casual, food services, home health care, retail, and other industries that heavily rely on hourly workers. Once the company has built a critical mass of hourly workers, HourWork can start to expand its offerings to benefit workers, including stackable credentials and portable benefits. 

The founding team at HourWork has proven themselves to be learning oriented, mission driven, and committed to the well being of the hourly worker. They have surrounded themselves with a board of directors who shares in this mission and Rahkeem Morris’ (CEO & Co-Founder) impressive background and involvement in the board of trustees for a local community college lends credibility to his ability to continue building on the impact of this business. Rahkeem is also in a position to recommend policies as a member of the 17-person Massachusetts special commission to study the Future of Work ​​that was established as part of the 2020 economic development and jobs bill signed into law in January 2021.

Impact

We believe that HourWork has the ability to make a positive impact by empowering worker lives and helping redefine the future of work. In addition to creating more job stability and opportunities for supplemental income, HourWork plans to impact hourly workers along three other dimensions:

1. Universal stackable certificates: guide shift-based workers to greater economic opportunity through credentialing skills learned through on-the-job training and enabling a platform that allows workers to use those skills anywhere that will accept them. Certificates are stacked to unlock different income opportunities and eventually stack with certificates earned from accredited educational institutions.

2. Financial and portable benefits management: give workers a tool for personal financial management designed for the future of work, inclusive of a platform for portable benefits for workers that provides improved financial stability and outcomes.

3. Employment “passport” and matching: virtually eliminate all barriers to hire, enabling workers to instantly obtain additional income from “good jobs” enabled through a feedback mechanism to owners and managers on their workplace environment and culture. Instantaneous hiring and feedback are designed to fuel a virtuous cycle where employers drive improvements in their culture and practices.