Magnify Ventures raises $46.6 million fund for care economy AI startups

Magnify Ventures closed a $46.6 million Fund II on July 1, bringing in Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures alongside new investors Jordan Park and Unum, plus financing from California’s Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank. The early-stage firm is steering the money into pre-seed and seed companies building AI infrastructure for the care economy, a bet on software that can make family care, health and home systems cheaper and easier to run.

The fund is aimed at startups working across health, wealth, family care, aging and longevity, women’s health, household optimization and work-life tools for modern families. Applied AI can reduce the invisible labor of running a household while improving quality and lowering costs across care and home systems. Magnify values the care economy at $648 billion, spanning pregnancy through end-of-life caregiving and the financial, health and consumer infrastructure that surrounds families.

Julie Wroblewski, Magnify’s co-founder, previously led Pivotal Ventures’ venture capital investment portfolio and strategy. Erin Harkless Moore, managing director of investments at Pivotal, said the fund addresses “one of society’s most pressing issues: family health and well-being,” adding that investing in caregiving benefits women, families and the broader economy.

Venture interest in the care economy has increased 45% over the past four years, according to Magnify. More than $26 billion has been invested in more than 700 care-economy companies since 2015, according to The Holding Co., working with Pivotal Ventures.

Magnify’s first fund totaled $52 million and backed more than 20 startups, including Kinside, Papa and Cocoon. By October 2024, Wroblewski and co-founder Joanna Drake were preparing a limited partner meeting for Fund II, according to a Stanford Graduate School of Business case study. Childcare is harder to scale than eldercare because regulation is hyper-local, margins are thinner and no Medicare-like reimbursement system exists, according to the case study. Magnify’s Care Summit is set to return to San Francisco in February 2027.