Carefull, a New York startup building an AI-powered platform to protect seniors from financial fraud, has raised $16.5 million in a Series A round led by San Francisco’s Fin Capital.
Other investors included Silicon Valley firms Bessemer Venture Partners, Commerce Ventures and Montage Ventures; Atlanta, Ga.-based TTV Capital, and Alloy Labs, of Sheridan, Wyo. So far, Carefull has raised $19.7 million from three rounds of funding.
Large Addressable Market
“There are now 45 million people across the country who are tasked with managing an aging loved one’s money, and older Americans lose $37 billion annually to fraud and money mistakes,” said Todd Rovak, co-founder and co-CEO of Carefull. Rovak, who earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, sold his earlier product design and development firm, Fahrenheit 212, to Capgemini in 2016.
“Banks, wealth advisors, and financial caregivers need a solution that customers actually want to use,” said Max Goldman, an ex-Googler and Carefull’s other co-founder and co-CEO. Goldman, who received business degrees from NYU’s Stern School of Business and Columbia Business School, worked at YouTube, where he launched and ran the Director product portfolio as part of Video Ads.
Founded in 2019, Carefull has built a system that enables banks, financial advisors and insurers to protect older adults not only from external scams, but also from their own mistakes. Its AI platform, for example, scans customer accounts for over 50 financial and behavioral issues unique to aging in a bid to identify “unusual activity, suspicious patterns, and even bigger problems like financial exploitation by a loved one or signs of cognitive decline.”
Banks Can Win Too
With features like identity, credit and home title monitoring, identity theft insurance of up to $1 million, and a vault for passwords and documents, Carefull says it helps banks retain the valuable accounts of seniors for longer periods, and build relationships with next-generation family members.
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“Carefull has emerged as an instrumental solution for financial caregivers and banks alike,” said Christian Ostberg, general partner at Fin Capital. Its “full-stack financial safety suite is a critical step in solving many of the acute issues in the category, and we’re excited about where the team is headed,” he added, pointing out that an estimated $84 trillion in wealth transfer is underway across the country.
Award in Bag
Today, Carefull has relationships with more than 35 financial institutions and advisor groups. Use of its platform in banks has reduced customer account churn and attrition by up to 10 times, and generated up to 60 new leads per wealth advisor, the company claims.
An implementation of its platform at the Cooperative Bank in Roslindale, Mass., won the Community Commitment Award from the American Bankers Association this year.
