Winners
Meet the entrepreneurs who are transforming the lives of people like Maude.
Lorenzo's House
Maude's Ventures proudly made the founding investment in Lorenzo's House, a nonprofit with the mission of empowering family care partners and their loved ones by addressing the social and clinical needs of families living with younger-onset Alzheimer’s.
Diana Shulla-Cose
Founding Executive Director, Lorenzo’s House
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After her husband was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s, Diana quickly learned about the care gap in the memory care space and decided to make meaning of this dark and isolating diagnosis by creating a place that builds community, delivers on innovation and brings light.
Support Tree
Maude's Ventures was excited to fund the launch of SupportTree, a new technology designed for primary caregivers to inspire personal network collaboration for a wide range of respite care options.
Mark Tarbutton
Co-Founder, SupportTree, Inc​
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Mark became intimately familiar with Alzheimer’s when his dad was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2015. He witnesses first-hand the struggles and challenges his mom deals with as the primary caregiver navigating a patchwork of caregiver resources and offline communities. Mark has extensive experience in the technology startup space as a co-founder of multiple scheduling and reservation applications, as well as high-level management for growth stage startups.
Alan Allison
Co-Founder, SupportTree, Inc​
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Alan was personally impacted by Alzheimer’s when his aunt passed away in 2016 from the disease. As the illness progressed, Alan watched the dramatic effect it had on his uncle and family, and the grief and confusion it caused with his family not knowing how to help. Alan has extensive, full-stack, technical development and management experience building websites and applications for Fortune 500 companies and startups.
Ella, by TapRoot
Maude's Ventures was excited to invest in TapRoot. TapRoot's digital assistant, Ella, mitigates adverse behaviors in Alzheimer's and dementia, promoting aging-in-place while supporting continuity from family care to long-term care and other care options. This application also provides short training videos for caregivers so they are always armed with the best caregiving knowledge.
Scarlett Spring
CEO, TapRoot Interventions & Solutions, Inc.​
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Personally impacted by dementia, Scarlett watched a great-grandmother, grandmother, uncle, and aunt develop dementia and become unable to communicate or recognise loved ones. Finding caregivers that understood the disease was challenging. Yet, after witnessing Linda's approach to personalizing care using information from family members and seeking to understand the drivers of dementia-related behavioral reactions, Scarlett knew they had to develop her approach and scale it. The result is TapRoot, where their approach is to tap into one's long-term memory increasing the likelihood of a successful intervention.
Linda Buscemi
Chief Clinical Officer/Co-Founder, TapRoot Interventions & Solutions, Inc.​
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Co-founder and behaviorist Linda Buscemi, PhD, has worked with skilled nursing and assisted living communities for 12 years training staff and writing behavioral plans, which she calls approach plans, providing personalized interventions to aid caregivers to better mitigate behavioral expressions in persons with cognitive deficits. Her vast experience, passion and belief that behaviors stem from a stimulus and finding each person's reason for that reaction has made her the perfect person to help in the creation of TapRoot’s digital assistant, Ella.
