The Launch Place Announces Exit from Early Portfolio Company
The Launch Place (TLP) today announces its third exit since making its first-ever investment in January 2014. This comes after its longtime portfolio company, Roobrik, raised a substantial $3 million Series A investment from growth equity firm Jurassic Capital in October 2022. The funding opens a new chapter for Roobrik’s growth and marks a strong return on investment for TLP—the startup’s first institutional backer.
Based in Durham, North Carolina, Roobrik markets an online assessment and decision-science platform that engages adults and caregivers as they browse senior living or aging service providers’ websites. While educating visitors on their options, Roobrik simultaneously helps its partners tap into a “hidden audience” of consumers at key moments in the shopping experience.
Roobrik caught TLP’s eye soon after its founding in 2013 by entrepreneur Nate O’Keefe, who successfully exited his medical app startup three years earlier. TLP President and CEO Eva Doss recalls, “I was first attracted to Roobrik based on the rapidly growing senior care industry and their novel test developed to help family members make senior care decisions for their aging parents.”
Doss was impressed with O’Keefe’s experience and passion for developing innovative tools to meet the high demand for data insights in the senior care market, and after TLP’s deep-dive due diligence process, TLP Pre-Seed Fund I invested $75,000 in October 2015 to help Roobrik commercialize its software.
Photo from 2015 Press Conference
The synergistic timing of the investment served both parties, as TLP wanted to support promising companies and build its portfolio, and Roobrik sought critical funding for pilot testing with senior care providers. Less than a year later, the company had expanded to meet TLP’s higher-level Seed Fund criteria, with the firm investing another $200,000 in May 2016. TLP later participated in Roobrik’s $1.4 million capital raise in September 2018, months after launching its second Pre-Seed Fund and Seed Fund to further support budding startups like Roobrik.
“The Launch Place’s early support for Roobrik was critical,” O’Keefe states. “Eva and her team provided our first institutional funding and participated in each subsequent round through our early phases of growth.”
In addition to the investment funds, TLP also provided business consulting services and office space to the startup. Roobrik’s recent success is a testament to TLP’s mission of equipping founders with the much-needed cash and consulting for product development, pilot testing, prototyping and other vital steps in the pre-seed to seed to early-stage journey of startup scaling. TLP’s portfolio companies have raised over $85 million in capital and landed $4.9 million in grants, with 63 patents granted or pending. TLP also provides business consulting services, serving 175 companies to date.
O’Keefe added, “We are grateful for their partnership—they continue to fill a critical gap in our region for early-stage capital.”
Today, Roobrik’s patent-pending Insight Solutions product continues to be in high demand, currently serving 140 leading providers, 1,400 community partners and 10,000 families every month. Meanwhile, TLP continues to expand its portfolio, now totaling 25 startups. More than 1,100 companies have applied to its Seed and Pre-Seed funds.
About The Launch Place
The Launch Place (TLP) provides capital, mentorship and support services for promising startups, focusing on SaaS, IoT, and medical, health and green technologies. The organization is based in Danville, Virginia, and has a second office in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. Its initial investment typically ranges from $200,000 to $250,000, with potential follow-on investments reaching $750,000. It has raised $23 million to fuel its investment funds and entrepreneurial ecosystem-building efforts in the Danville River region. TLP’s original and biggest funder to date is the Danville Regional Foundation.
About Roobrik
Roobrik is a technology company founded in Durham, North Carolina, in 2013 to give more and better days to families while also helping the organizations that care for them grow. The patent-pending Roobrik Insight Solutions platform provides unbiased support to older adults and families navigating age-related care and lifestyle decisions, enabling them to connect with aging service providers when they are ready. Roobrik currently serves more than 1,400 senior living communities and over 10,000 consumers each month.
###