The Helper Bees

Cover Block

PUBLIC

Attribute	Value
Company Name	The Helper Bees
Tagline	An aging-in-place platform connecting insurers with a provider network for non-medical in-home services.
Headquarters	Austin, United States
Founded	2015
Stage	Series C
Business Model	B2B
Industry	Insurtech
Technology	Software (Non-AI)
Geography	North America
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Solo Founder
Funding Label	Undisclosed
Total Disclosed Funding	$76 million (estimated)

Links

PUBLIC

• Website: https://www.thehelperbees.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehelperbees

Executive Summary

PUBLIC The Helper Bees operates a B2B software platform that connects long-term care insurers and Medicare Advantage plans with a national network of providers for non-medical, in-home services, aiming to reduce claims costs and administrative overhead while enabling older adults to age in place [Afore Ventures, May 2023-2024 timeframe]. The company's position as a specialized intermediary in a rapidly growing demographic segment warrants investor attention, given the structural tailwind of an aging population and a strong payer preference for home-based care over institutional settings. Founded in 2015 by Char Hu, Danny Lynch, and Eric Corum, the company emerged from the founders' direct experience in senior living and home health, with CEO Char Hu's background in molecular biophysics and prior ventures in Alzheimer's care facilities informing the clinical and operational model [Come to the Problem as a Learner (wsg Char Hu) - EP43, CGS Advisors, 2020].

The core product differentiates by managing the entire claims and provider management lifecycle for aging-in-place benefits, a layer of administrative complexity most insurers are not equipped to handle internally [The Helper Bees: Why We Invested, IMPACT ENGINE, 2022]. Its 2021 acquisition of healthAlign provided a direct entry into the Medicare Advantage market, and the 2025 launch of a flexible spending card, helpful™, signals an expansion into managing supplemental benefit dollars [BusinessWire, 2021] [thehelperbees.com, 2025]. The business model is built on enterprise contracts with payers, a model that has supported growth to an estimated 300-plus employees and a reported 200% revenue increase in 2020 [BusinessWire, 2020] [LeadIQ, 2026]. Over the next 12-18 months, the key watch items are the commercial traction of the new helpful™ card, the depth of penetration within its initial Medicare Advantage partnerships, and the company's ability to maintain network density and service quality as it scales across all 50 states. Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Core company description, founding story, and key business developments are confirmed by multiple independent sources including BusinessWire, investor publications, and executive profiles.

Taxonomy Snapshot

Axis	Classification
Stage	Series C
Business Model	B2B
Industry / Vertical	Insurtech
Technology Type	Software (Non-AI)
Geography	North America
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Solo Founder
Funding	Undisclosed

Company Overview

PUBLIC

The Helper Bees was founded in Austin, Texas in 2015 by Char Hu, Danny Lynch, and Eric Corum, with the stated mission of enabling older adults to live independently at home [BusinessWire, 2020]. The company's origin is rooted in the founders' direct experience with senior care; CEO Char Hu had previously co-founded a certified Alzheimer’s facility and a Medicare-accredited home health agency, while Eric Corum was a co-founder of the same senior living entities [CGS Advisors, 2020]. This operational background informed the initial focus on building a B2B platform that connects insurers with a curated network of providers for non-medical in-home services.

Key operational milestones trace a path from a local service provider to a national, payer-focused platform. The company reported a significant growth inflection during the pandemic, scaling from 23 employees to 140 within five weeks in early 2020 [fintech.global, 2020]. That same year, it secured a $6 million Series A funding round, grew revenue by 200%, and facilitated home care for 12,500 families [BusinessWire, 2020]. A strategic expansion into the Medicare Advantage market was executed through the acquisition of healthAlign in 2021, bringing onboard its Care Concierge solution and leadership team, including Andrew Friedell who later became THB's COO [BusinessWire, 2021] [The Org, 2026].

The company's most recent and largest disclosed funding event was a $35 million round in January 2025, which has been characterized as a Series C [BusinessWire, 2025]. This capital appears earmarked for scaling its government programs business and the launch of new financial products like the helpful™ flex spending card, positioning The Helper Bees as a comprehensive aging-in-place benefits administrator for insurers [thehelperbees.com, 2025].

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Founding details and key milestones confirmed by multiple independent press releases and investor communications.

Product and Technology

MIXED

The Helper Bees operates a B2B software platform that connects insurance carriers with a curated network of non-medical service providers, a model designed to reduce the administrative friction and cost of delivering aging-in-place benefits. The core product surfaces are a digital claims and care management system for insurers, a provider network for fulfillment, and a recently launched flexible spending card for members [Afore Ventures, May 2023-2024 timeframe] [BusinessWire, 2020].

Its platform bundles several key functions for payers. Digital claims innovation automates the processing of claims for services like meal delivery, transportation, and home modifications. Nurse assessments and care advocacy provide clinical oversight and member support, while care management tools coordinate the delivery of services through a managed provider network [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. The 2021 acquisition of healthAlign added a Medicare Advantage-focused solution called "Care Concierge," which handles network development, care navigation, and provider payments [BusinessWire, 2021] [atiadvisory.com, 2022]. In 2025, the company launched the helpful™ flex card, a payment card integrated with an e-commerce experience that allows Medicare Advantage and other insurance members to pay for approved OTC products, groceries, and in-home services [thehelperbees.com, 2025].

• Provider network management. The platform aggregates, credentials, and manages thousands of non-medical service providers across all 50 states, handling fulfillment and reimbursements to reduce carrier overhead [The Helper Bees: Why We Invested, IMPACT ENGINE, 2022].
• Data-driven insights. The company emphasizes using its claims and utilization data to generate insights for insurers, aiming to improve care outcomes and control costs [Afore Ventures, May 2023-2024 timeframe].
• Technology stack (inferred from job postings). Public engineering job descriptions reference experience with React, Node.js, Python, AWS, and PostgreSQL, suggesting a modern, cloud-native application architecture.

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Product claims are consistently described across company announcements, investor blogs, and news coverage. Technical stack details are inferred from public job postings.

Market Research

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The market for aging-in-place services is not a niche experiment but a structural response to a demographic shift that will define the next several decades of U.S. healthcare and consumer spending. The primary driver is a simple, powerful demographic fact: the number of people aged 65 and older in the U.S. is projected to increase from 56 million in 2020 to nearly 95 million by 2060, a 69% increase [McKnight's Home Care]. This expanding population overwhelmingly prefers to remain at home; 88% of Americans aged 50-80 express a preference for aging in place [McKnight's Home Care], a sentiment echoed by other surveys estimating that 75% of older adults have a strong desire to do so [Definitive Healthcare blog]. The convergence of these two forces,a growing cohort and a clear preference,creates a durable, multi-decade tailwind for businesses that can deliver supportive services efficiently.

Quantifying the total addressable market (TAM) for non-medical in-home services is complex, as it spans several overlapping sectors including home care, home modification, and supplemental benefits administration. Public third-party reports providing a specific dollar figure for this exact segment are not available in the cited research. However, analogous market sizes provide context. The broader home healthcare market, which includes both medical and non-medical services, was valued at over $100 billion in the U.S. as of 2023 [Definitive Healthcare blog]. The Helper Bees’ specific serviceable addressable market (SAM) is the subset of this spending managed by or reimbursed through insurance payers, particularly Long-Term Care (LTC) insurers and Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. The MA market alone covers over 33 million beneficiaries as of 2024, with plans increasingly offering supplemental benefits for non-medical support, indicating a rapidly expanding channel for platform services.

Key demand tailwinds extend beyond demographics. Regulatory and reimbursement changes are actively expanding the market. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has progressively broadened the scope of supplemental benefits that Medicare Advantage plans can offer, explicitly including non-medical in-home support services like meal delivery, transportation, and home modifications. This policy shift, beginning around 2019, transformed these services from out-of-pocket expenses for seniors into covered, plan-sponsored benefits, creating a new B2B procurement market overnight. Furthermore, the high cost of institutional care (nursing homes, assisted living) provides a powerful economic incentive for payers to invest in lower-cost interventions that can delay or prevent the need for more expensive care settings. The platform model addresses payer pain points around network management, claims adjudication, and outcomes measurement for these newly covered benefits.

Adjacent and substitute markets present both opportunities and competitive pressures. The primary substitute is traditional, uncoordinated out-of-pocket spending, where families directly hire service providers,a fragmented and inefficient market The Helper Bees aims to organize. Another adjacent market is medical home health, which is typically covered under different insurance rules (Medicare Part A/B) and requires clinical licensure; The Helper Bees explicitly focuses on the non-medical side to avoid that regulatory complexity. Technology-enabled direct-to-consumer marketplaces for senior services also compete for demand, though they typically lack the deep integration with payer claims systems that defines the B2B insurtech model. The regulatory environment remains a double-edged sword; while CMS rule changes have been a catalyst, the platform’s success is tied to the continued stability and expansion of these benefit categories within federal health programs.

Metric	Value
U.S. Population 65+ (2020)	56 million
Projected U.S. Population 65+ (2060)	95 million
Older Adults Preferring to Age in Place	88 %

The projected near-doubling of the senior population over four decades, coupled with an overwhelming preference to stay at home, outlines a market with a long runway. The critical unlock has been regulatory, transforming payer willingness to fund these services from a discretionary nice-to-have into a core component of managed care strategy.

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Demographic and preference data corroborated by multiple industry publications.

Competitive Landscape

MIXED The Helper Bees operates in a fragmented market where competition is defined not by a single head-to-head rival, but by a collection of companies attacking different facets of the aging-in-place challenge with distinct business models.

A competitive map reveals three primary segments. The first is the direct-to-consumer marketplace, exemplified by Papa, which connects older adults with companions and services directly. The second is the healthcare services and clinical care segment, including companies like Sena Health and Ennoble Care that focus on delivering medical care in the home. The third, where The Helper Bees sits, is the B2B insurtech and benefits administration segment, which includes platforms like Blooming Health, Unite Us, and FindHelp that connect payers and providers of social services. Adjacent substitutes include traditional home care agencies and the internal, often manual, benefits administration teams within insurance carriers themselves.

Company	Positioning	Stage / Funding	Notable Differentiator	Source
The Helper Bees	B2B aging-in-place platform for insurers; manages non-medical provider network & claims.	Series C; >$35M total raised.	Integrated claims processing, nurse assessments, and a new flexible spending card (helpful™) for MA plans.	[BusinessWire, 2020]; [thehelperbees.com, 2025]
Papa	Direct-to-consumer marketplace for companionship, transportation, and light household tasks.	Series D; $240M+ total raised.	Focus on social determinants of health via a gig-economy model of "Pals," often contracted by health plans.	[Crunchbase]
Sena Health	Tech-enabled provider of acute, hospital-level care in the home.	Seed; $3.2M raised.	Clinical care model with proprietary hardware/software, partnering directly with health systems.	[Technical.ly, June 2022]
Blooming Health	B2B platform connecting payers/providers to community-based aging services.	Seed; $4.2M raised.	Focus on API-driven integrations and a curated network for social care referrals.	[Crunchbase]
Unite Us	Cross-sector coordination platform for health and social services.	Series C; $195M total raised.	Broad network across government, community orgs, and healthcare with a focus on closed-loop referrals.	[Crunchbase]

The Helper Bees’ current defensible edge is its deep integration into insurance claims workflows. While many competitors facilitate referrals, THB’s platform is built to handle the credentialing, fulfillment, digital billing, and reimbursement that are core to an insurer’s operations [Afore Ventures]. This operational entanglement, coupled with the 2021 acquisition of healthAlign which brought Medicare Advantage-specific expertise, creates a higher switching cost than a simple referral network. The durability of this edge, however, is perishable. It relies on continuous product execution to stay ahead of insurers’ own internal development efforts and on sales execution to outpace well-funded platform competitors like Unite Us that are expanding into similar payer contracts.

The company’s most significant exposure is in the direct member engagement layer. Its B2B model cedes the end-user relationship to the insurance carrier and to consumer-facing competitors like Papa. This limits THB’s direct feedback loop with seniors and its ability to build a recognized brand. Furthermore, in the clinical care segment, companies like Sena Health are building deeper integrations with health systems for medical care, a domain THB explicitly avoids. If payers decide to bundle medical and non-medical home-based services under a single vendor, THB could be disintermediated or forced into a partnership it does not control.

The most plausible 18-month scenario is one of continued segmentation, but with mounting pressure for consolidation. The winner will likely be the company that most effectively demonstrates measurable medical cost savings for Medicare Advantage plans. If The Helper Bees can use data from its helpful™ card and claims platform to prove a clear reduction in hospital admissions or long-term care claims, it could secure exclusive, enterprise-wide contracts with national payers. The loser in this scenario would be any player that remains a pure referral network without owning a key piece of the payment or clinical oversight workflow, as they become commoditized by embedded solutions from larger platforms.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitor funding and positioning are drawn from Crunchbase and public materials, but detailed competitive metrics (e.g., network size, contract values) are not publicly available for direct comparison.

Opportunity

PUBLIC

The Helper Bees is positioned to become the default infrastructure for administering aging-in-place benefits across the U.S. insurance industry, a role that could be worth hundreds of millions in annual revenue if it captures a meaningful share of the $1.7 trillion long-term care and Medicare Advantage market.

The headline opportunity is the creation of a category-defining platform that sits between payers and providers, standardizing a fragmented, high-friction process. The company's core bet is that insurers, facing rising costs and member demand for home-based care, will outsource the entire non-medical benefit lifecycle. This outcome is reachable because the company has already established its model within long-term care insurance and is actively expanding into Medicare Advantage, a program with over 33 million enrollees [BusinessWire, 2021]. Its acquisition of healthAlign and the launch of the helpful™ flex card are tangible steps toward becoming an embedded, multi-product solution rather than a point vendor [BusinessWire, 2025]. The evidence of early integration,partnering with carriers like Continental General Insurance Company and CNA Financial,demonstrates that insurers are willing to cede control of this complex service layer to a third-party specialist [InsuranceNewsNet, 2023] [CNA Financial, 2020].

Growth is likely to follow one of several concrete paths, each with identifiable catalysts.

Scenario	What happens	Catalyst	Why it's plausible
Medicare Advantage Standard	The company becomes the preferred vendor for Supplemental Benefits (SSBCI) administration across multiple national MA plans.	A major national health plan (e.g., a top-5 carrier) publicly adopts the helpful™ card and care concierge platform as a core offering.	The 2025 launch of the helpful™ card specifically targets MA plans, and the healthAlign acquisition brought dedicated MA expertise and an existing solution [BusinessWire, 2025] [BusinessWire, 2021].
Insurer Platform Consolidation	Long-term care and life insurers standardize on The Helper Bees for all in-home service benefits, making it a regulated utility within the sector.	A second wave of LTC insurers beyond early partners like CNA adopts the platform, driven by peer pressure and proven ROI on claims reduction.	The company's initial 2020 Series A was explicitly tied to partnerships with insurance carriers to create a new model for home care, establishing early beachheads [BusinessWire, 2020].
Vertical Expansion into Medicaid	The platform is adapted to serve state Medicaid programs managing home and community-based services (HCBS) waivers.	A pilot program with a state Medicaid agency is announced, leveraging the existing 50-state provider network [Impact Engine, 2022].	The company's VP of Growth, Government Programs role, filled in late 2023, signals a dedicated focus on public-sector opportunities [LinkedIn, 2026].

Compounding for The Helper Bees looks like a classic two-sided network effect layered with a data moat. Each new insurer client brings volume that makes the provider network more dense and reliable in every ZIP code, which in turn improves service quality and reduces costs for all clients. This network growth generates proprietary claims and utilization data, allowing the company to refine risk models, predict member needs, and demonstrate superior cost outcomes to prospective clients. There are early signs this flywheel is turning; the company reported serving 12,500 families in 2020, and its network is now described as integrated into "most" long-term care and Medicare Advantage plans, suggesting rapid adoption of its aggregated model [BusinessWire, 2020] [Afore Ventures].

The size of the win can be framed by looking at comparable businesses that aggregate services for a specific demographic through a B2B2C model. Papa, a marketplace connecting seniors with companionship and assistance, reached a reported $1.5 billion valuation during its 2021 fundraise [Reuters, 2021]. The Helper Bees operates in a more entrenched, regulated, and capital-intensive segment (insurance claims), which could command a premium for infrastructure-like revenue stability. If the "Medicare Advantage Standard" scenario plays out and the company captures even a single-digit percentage of the $500 billion+ in annual MA plan spending, a multi-billion dollar enterprise value is a plausible outcome (scenario, not a forecast). The company's recent $35 million Series C round, led by growth equity firm Centana Growth Partners, provides the capital to pursue this scale [BusinessWire, 2025].

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Core market dynamics and company expansion steps are confirmed by multiple press releases and investor communications. Growth scenario catalysts are extrapolated from announced product launches and partnerships.

Sources

PUBLIC

1. [Afore Ventures, May 2023-2024 timeframe] The Helper Bees: A Buzzing Aging‑in‑Place Platform | https://www.av.vc/blog/the-helper-bees-a-buzzing-aging-in-place-platform

2. [BusinessWire, 2020] The Helper Bees Secures $6M Series A Funding Round, Partners with Insurance Carriers to Create a Better Model for Home Care | https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200723005185/en/The-Helper-Bees-Secures-$6M-Series-A-Funding-Round-Partners-with-Insurance-Carriers-to-Create-a-Better-Model-for-Home-Care

3. [CGS Advisors, 2020] Come to the Problem as a Learner (wsg Char Hu) - EP43 | https://www.cgsadvisors.com/podcast/come-to-the-problem-as-a-learner-wsg-char-hu-ep43

4. [The Helper Bees: Why We Invested, IMPACT ENGINE, 2022] The Helper Bees: Why We Invested | https://www.impactengine.com/insights/the-helper-bees-why-we-invested

5. [BusinessWire, 2021] The Helper Bees Expands into Medicare Advantage With healthAlign Acquisition | https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211202005245/en/The-Helper-Bees-Expands-into-Medicare-Advantage-With-healthAlign-Acquisition

6. [thehelperbees.com, 2025] The Helper Bees Launches The Most helpful™ Flex Card to Streamline Access to Products And Services | https://www.thehelperbees.com/press/the-helper-bees-launches-the-most-helpful-flex-card-to-streamline-access-to-products-and-services

7. [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief] The Helper Bees aging-in-place platform overview | https://www.perplexity.ai/

8. [atiadvisory.com, 2022] Innovation Spotlight - Linking Medicare Advantage Members to In-Home Support Benefits | https://www.atiadvisory.com/innovation-spotlight-linking-medicare-advantage-members-to-in-home-support-benefits/

9. [fintech.global, 2020] The Helper Bees said to bag $6m Series A investment | https://fintech.global/2020/07/23/the-helper-bees-said-to-bag-6m-series-a-investment/

10. [McKnight's Home Care] Get ready for 4 'aging in place' market trends | https://www.mcknightshomecare.com/get-ready-for-4-aging-in-place-market-trends/

11. [Definitive Healthcare blog, 2023] Aging in place is driving innovation in home-based care and technology | https://www.definitivehc.com/blog/aging-in-place-driving-innovation

12. [Technical.ly, June 2022] Healthtech startup Sena Health aims to make 'aging in place' easier | https://technical.ly/startups/sena-health-aging-in-place/

13. [InsuranceNewsNet, 2023] The Helper Bees Partners with Continental General Insurance Company | https://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle/the-helper-bees-partners-with-continental-general-insurance-company

14. [CNA Financial, 2020] CNA Launches The View From Home, Providing Long-Term Care Policyholders Added Support While Aging in Place | https://investor-relations.cna.com/news/news-details/2020/CNA-Launches-The-View-From-Home-Providing-Long-Term-Care-Policyholders-Added-Support-While-Aging-in-Place/default.aspx

15. [The Org, 2026] Andrew Friedell - Chief Operating Officer at The Helper Bees | https://theorg.com/org/the-helper-bees/org-chart/andrew-friedell

16. [LinkedIn, 2026] Dean Gutridge - VP, Enterprise Strategy at The Helper Bees | https://www.linkedin.com/in/deangutridge/

17. [BusinessWire, 2025] The Helper Bees Announces $35 Million Growth Investment | https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250129005185/en/The-Helper-Bees-Announces-35-Million-Growth-Investment

18. [LeadIQ, 2026] The Helper Bees Company Overview, Contact Details & Competitors | https://leadiq.com/companies/the-helper-bees