Why We Invested: Magnolia
Company: Magnolia
Founders: Liz Tarullo
Stage: Seed
Women’s Health Vertical: Caregiving
Industry: Aging
Meet Magnolia: a company that seeks to transform caregiving into a pillar of the healthcare system
Magnolia is building an AI-first platform to integrate the 40M family caregivers in the US into the healthcare system, recognizing their crucial role in driving health outcomes and reducing care costs by up to $300 billion. Built on HIPAA-compliant large language models (LLMs) that can synthesize patient clinical data, healthcare protocols, and caregiver demographics, Magnolia pushes targeted training and interventions to family caregivers, supporting them from both knowledge and mental health standpoints as they make critical care decisions. Since beta-launching in May 2024, Magnolia has partnered with major providers in the Pacific Northwest, been accepted into CMS’s GUIDE Program, and reduced hospital emergency room readmissions by 52%.
Why?
According to the US Census Bureau, the number of Americans ages 65 or older is projected to increase from 58 million (17% of the population) in 2022 to 73 million (21% of the population) by 2030. The federal government also projects increases in the number of Americans with certain diseases or impairments, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia; in 2023, ~6.9M in the US suffered from Alzheimer’s, and this is projected to triple by 2060.
While the number of elderly Americans requiring medical support is expected to increase rapidly, physician supply is not expected to keep pace. Consequently, the number of caregivers needed to support the aging population is expected to sharply increase. People live with dementia for an average of 10 years, with the disease progressing at varied rates, requiring careful monitoring of symptoms and revisions to patient care plans. Alzheimer’s patients are often managed by primary care providers (PCPs), many of whom are overextended, and thus rely on caregivers, who have vital information about patients’ medication resistance and forgetfulness, to adapt care plans.
Over 60% of caregivers indicate that they do not receive adequate training, clinical guidance, and emotional support or community. On top of that, a lack of resources to support caregivers has resulted in severe burnout and fatigue.
There is a pressing need to both support caregivers from a mental health standpoint, but also to ensure that elderly patients are receiving hands-on, dedicated support at-home. Magnolia fulfills these needs, providing a well-integrated, seamless solution that supports caregiver mental health, while also ensuring a robust feedback loop in patient care plan development.
What differentiates them in the market relative to competitors?
Magnolia is building on the tailwinds of successful large healthtech companies that have focused on extending the reach of clinicians into the home through tech-enabled services.
There are five key aspects that differentiate Magnolia in the caregiving and virtual dementia care space:
Comprehensive Support: Magnolia offers a centralized platform for care planning, education, caregiver mental health support, and clinical guidance. This reduces fragmented and chaotic caregiving approaches, and allows for visibility for all stakeholders involved in the patient’s care journey.
Deep Caregiver Expertise: Magnolia’s founding team is composed of executives with decades of experience working in the caregiving space—both as personal caregivers to loved ones, and as innovators in the space. This team brings a deep understanding of how to improve quality of care, which is ultimately how a healthcare company is measured.
Efficiency and Integration: Magnolia offers seamless integration into pre-existing processes and systems. It is integrated into EHRs, reducing administrative burdens, and enabling real-time care planning, data synchronization, and preventative interventions.
AI-First Technology: Magnolia leverages state-of-the-art AI technology to enable scalable, personalized, and clinically validated support.
Multi-channel GTM Strategy: Magnolia’s current model is a virtual Fee for Service (FFS) model, offering virtual caregiver support services reimbursed by Medicare and commercial payers. This enables Magnolia to refine the product, scale outcomes, and establish provider partnerships. Long-term, Magnolia plans for national expansion via a Value Based Care (VBC) model. Magnolia’s technology is inherently designed to support the VBC model, focusing on quality of care, provider performance, and patient experience under a capitated risk-sharing payment model. Magnolia has already entered the VBC market through the CMS GUIDE Program, which pays a per member per month fee with performance-based adjustments, enhancing caregiver support for dementia patients.
About the team
Liz Tarullo, founder and CEO of Magnolia, has spent her entire career building and operating within nimble, fast-moving, and innovative organizations. She started her career at Venture for America, and subsequently worked as the Head of Partnerships at Vesta Healthcare, a $50M+ funded technology-enabled home health company transforming the experience of paid caregiving. She later went on to serve on the founding team of Amazon Care, Amazon’s first healthcare offering. Liz brings a depth of experience in scaling health-technology companies, and particular expertise in the caregiving space, from both Vesta Healthcare, as well as from her personal life.
Liz also brings together a strong executive team to bring Magnolia’s ambitious vision to life. Volker Einsfeld, CTO, has deep experience scaling tech teams from 0-100. He previously served as CTO of Dolly (on-demand moving startup acquired by Updater for $200MM+), and holds a BS in Computational Linguistics and AI as well as an MS and PhD studying Applied AI. His experience taking care of aging parents and desire to ease the burden of care on others is what led him to Magnolia. Kate Farley, COO, brings strong healthcare operating expertise from her time as SVP of Operations at Limeade (now WebMD), and also previously held executive roles at SITO Mobile and HipCricket. She also brings personal experience as a remote caregiver to her mom.
Dr. Lama Sibai, and Alice Allen-Redfern lead Magnolia’s Medical and Clinical teams, respectively, and bring deep expertise in the Alzheimer’s caregiving space from the Brain & Memory Health Group, a multi-disciplinary dementia support organization they co-founded that Magnolia recently acquired.
Coyote Ventures Investment
Coyote Ventures is proud to join Magnolia in their Seed round alongside Village Global, Prufrock Ventures, VEST Her Ventures, and Tokio Marine Future Fund.
How is Magnolia advancing the conversation around caregiving?
In the United States, nearly 70% of caregivers for patients with dementia are women, who struggle to go about their own day-to-day while also making the time to care for their ailing loved ones. As the anticipated burden on caregivers and the number of caregivers is expected to increase, there are widespread concerns about the effects this will have on exacerbating gender disparity in the workforce and gender inequality in society at large.
Thus, Magnolia’s launch comes at a critical inflection point in this societal problem, and we are heartened by their dedication to creating a robust, comprehensive solution that prioritizes both mitigating caregiver burnout and improving patient health outcomes.
Going forward: vision of the company
Looking beyond the current offerings, Magnolia plans to expand to support caregivers who provide care for patients with many aging and chronic conditions. This bold, holistic vision to transform the caregiving industry could include expansion into Parkinson’s Disease, Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, and COPD.
The team at Coyote is thrilled to support Magnolia’s ambitious plan to improve the lives of elderly patients and their caregivers, which strongly resonates with our fund values. As we share this common goal, we look forward to collaborating with Magnolia and bringing to life this exciting vision.