London-based care home staffing app Florence has raised £28.5m, as it plans to expand its services beyond elderly care.

What does Florence do?

Founded in 2016, Florence connects temporary nursing staff to care homes via a free app, alongside selling a rota management software product and e-learning tools to the care homes themselves. 90,000 care professionals and 2,000 care organisations use Florence. 

Who’s investing?

• Corporate venture fund Axa Venture Partners led the round
• Roo Capital also participated
• As did existing backer, the London-based growth stage VC SEEK Ventures

The market

• Elderly healthcare is a nascent sector but we’re seeing more startups beginning to pick up funding
• Just last month, Paris-based elderly care platform Ouihelp raised €30m in a round led by French family office Creadev; another elderly care platform Helppy, from Finland, raised €3m in seed funding from Norwegian early-stage VC Alliance Venture; and Berlin-based Patronus — which provides digital tools for the elderly and their carers — raised $7m in a round led by early-stage investor Cavalry Ventures. 
• Other fast-growing care tech startups include UK-based Birdie and Cera Care.

What’s next

Florence will use the investment for product expansion to support care in the UK and multiple international markets, and to expand its services beyond elderly care.

Sifted’s take

While we haven’t seen startups pounce on the elderly healthcare market in the same way as many other verticals in digital health so far, this sector is ripe for a technological makeover. Expect to see more startups targeting elderly healthcare — and VCs willing to back them — emerging.