Tech talk: Colaxy and Kare Intellex
Purpose: To ease caregiving for providers and ensure only care given is billed
Platforms:iOS and Android
Price: Would not disclose software as a service pricing
Market: Home healthcare agencies and independent care providers
After its first round of formal funding resulting in a $300,000 investment from Rev1 Ventures, NCT Ventures and OhioHealth, Columbus-founded app Kare Intellex is poised to disrupt how caregiving is recorded and billed.
CEO and founder Hanad Duale created Kare Intellex with the goal of making caregiving an easier and more transparent process.
The app went live this spring and has nine agencies using version 2.0. However, it is also intended for use by independent caregivers.
Kare Intellex uses geolocation to ensure that an assigned caregiver is actually within a given patient's household. Only then can he or she check off that care has been provided. The geolocation requirement also ensures that only care given-according to the app-is billed.
Duale has a PhD in physiology and had been ruminating over the idea for a product of this kind for some time, but product development for the app didn't start until early 2015, as caregiving challenges increased with more Baby Boomers requiring aid.
"The biggest challenge (in caregiving) is the amount of paperwork you have to go though. It's definitely demanding, regulation is changing frequently, there's just so much expected of (caregivers) and we understand that if documentation is not right, if timesheets are not handed in on time, all of these can often lead to caregivers being penalized financially for all of that," Duale says.
Although version 2.0 streamlines the paperwork process, it does not give relatives of patients access to the app. Duale hopes to include such a feature in version 3.0.
Invented by: Colaxy, colaxy.com
Cost: Free
Investor: Optimum Technology
Amount funded: Full ownership by Optimum Technology
Inspired by the many platforms graphic designers and photographers have to exhibit their work, Chintan Parmar, senior software engineer at Columbus-based Optimum Technology, completed and launched website Colaxy in February to give software engineers a place to exhibit their creative, hobbyist or school work. With only six registered users, Parmar is seeking a large and active user base by reaching out to central Ohio professors, asking them to spread the word in the classroom.
College students make up the target market for the platform, as Parmar differentiates Colaxy from GitHub by Colaxy's focus, which allows a user's software collection to act as a portfolio in the job search and is not intended for open collaboration (unlike on GitHub). After Colaxy gains 100 users, Parmar hopes to monetize the site by letting users sell their work, with 10 percent of each sale going to Colaxy. To ensure code isn't copied illegally, projects' full code won't be displayed.
Parmar's creativity is apparent in both his inception of Colaxy and in its ownership model. Because his H1B Visa status prevents Parmar, who is Indian, from owning Colaxy, he pitched the idea for the site to Optimum Technology President and Founder Josh Davda, who had enough faith in the concept to take it on under Optimum's ownership. Parmar will receive 50 percent equity once he obtains a green card.
"In an interesting twist, they seem to be positioning as a combo between GitHub and Medium, but the market there is unclear."
–Potential Investor: Ray Shealy, partner, Founders Factory
"It is a great alternative to GitHub for those who prefer more of a portfolio-focused platform rather than a collaborative one. Everything will be concentrated in one place."
–Potential user: Kathy Guo, undergraduate student, College of Engineering, Ohio State University
"Given GitHub's popularity, it will be important for Colaxy to demonstrate to developers that it is a superior platform."
–Industry Pro: Arthur Neuman, developer and co-founder, Alder Analytics