Upping the ante for assisted living services in city

The start-up, which is leveraging technology to serve the growing senior population in the city, is the new venture of Adi Saravanan and Jagadish Ramamoorthi, who were earlier promoters of the Chennai-based Allsec, in which a majority stake was divested to Quess Corp for Rs 270 crore, last year. The company’s aim is to provide an easy to access, pay-as-you-go service that brings the benefits of community living to one’s own home.

In an interaction with DTNext, Ramamoorthi shares the blueprint of the company, that he and his co-founder seeded with a capital of Rs 5 crore. “We saw opportunities in the senior community living space. There properties are developed by realty players and specialist companies to provide senior care. But the services must be sustained. Given the low standard of service, we felt there is a huge untapped opportunity,” he said, adding there were under 20,000 homes for this community, of which around 60 per cent were located in the south.

Multiple issues in the form of high costs, poor service levels, geographic distance (remotely located homes), lack of medical facilities made Alserv come up with a plan, seeking to address financial, social and emotional issues. “In a community, everything is ‘packaged.’ We thought of offering a service platform with a ‘pay per use’ model.

Be it a nurse or a driver on call or housekeeping staff, customers can avail facilities based on needs,” Ramamoorthi said, highlighting the ‘dignity’ restored to this citizenry and the choice of staying in their ‘home’ rather than being sent off to a ‘home.’

The business runs on a subscription based model (Rs 999 per month) and has been piloted in a few regions since January this year. “We have divided the city in about 12 zones covering the areas with two service providers signed up in every zone for each service. We have a tech-enabled service delivery model with a 24/7 call centre,” Ramamoorthi said, borrowing from the experience of the Allsec Group of companies, that he and Saravanan founded.

The market provides an opportunity for assisted living services, especially to those who are not comfortable leaving their home. “We offer independent living which can be monitored via technology by near and dear ones of our customers.

For instance, we had a case of a lady who had spent a major part of her life in boarding schools. She did not want a similar scheduled life of everything being planned to clockwork precision and discipline, even in her sunset years,” he said.