If you're in need of better ways to socialize or care for an aging parent, Papa ($PRIVATE:JOINPAPA) is scaling up, and could be the startup that proves most critical to you and your extended family.
The Miami-based startup added $10 million in funding earlier this year from backers including Canaan, Pivotal Ventures, an investment firm backed by Melinda Gates, Y Combinator, and other venture investors. And, Papa is scaling up in app stores as it also builds its geographic presence out.
Its Google ($GOOG) Play Store Ratings Count has risen more than 40% in just a few months since Thinknum Alternative Data began tracking Papa. The company says it has 3,500 "Papa pals," or students taking on part-time work of providing elder care to the end-users of its product.
Papa is already operating in dozens of US cities, and in jurisdictions in which one might expect their client base to be a little more robust than in other places in America (ok: Florida), and in other states too. Accordingly, headcount appears to be rising - at least, according to the startup's LinkedIn ($MSFT) Employee Headcount. That has risen about 20% since mid-September.
And, in part thanks to vocal backers like Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit whose investment firm Initialized also invested in Papa, the company is scaling up attention on social media the same way it appears to be adding staff, and users. In just three months, Papa has also racked up 20% more Facebook ($FB) Likes on the social network, a good sign that it is continuing to gain adoption.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.