Bateau: Maintaining Safety and Compliance at Long-Term Care Facilities

Safety and compliance requirements are constantly evolving, and using email, intranet, and meetings to coordinate makes it hard for on-site staff to know what the latest requirements are and requires time-intensive follow-ups from the Home Office and Regional Directors to verify that all requirements are completed consistently.

Bateau, an AVG portfolio company and deal accessed by our AVG Seed Fund (formerly known as First Check Fund), offers safety and compliance software for long-term care providers that combines HR, Ops, and Compliance in an accessible tech platform. Bateau provides Home Office and Regional Directors with visibility and confidence, saves time for Executive Directors, and automatically maintains a complete audit trail for compliance.

Making the Grade

Bateau allows providers to create a single library for staff to find current versions of policies, forms, training videos, and other files. The platform can be set up in one to two weeks and customized for each client to fit the needs of their facilities, and Bateau is straightforward and simple to use (on-boarding takes 1-2 weeks and staff can be trained in less than half an hour).

Bateau digitizes customer policies and requirements and creates assignments (such as a “Daily Cleaning Checklist”) which can be scheduled for each community. As communities complete assignments Bateau generates notifications and alerts for the Home Office and Regional Directors (so that they are aware of progress) and automatically updates the audit trail.

Bateau provides peace of mind for long-term care providers: Home Office and Regional Directors can verify that communities are compliant with all requirements and quickly identify and resolve issues, Executive Directors and Associates save hours each week vs. digging through email or intranet to find the latest version of documents, and Sales & Marketing can demonstrate to families that all safety and compliance requirements are consistently followed.

Pre-Seed Opportunity

Before co-founding Bateau, CEO Paul Jarvis and CTO Henry Hutcheson excelled at high-growth startups like Palantir and Amperity, respectively. They began working on Bateau as a side venture but left their jobs to raise a pre-seed round, launch the product, and gain initial traction.

AVG identified Bateau as a promising albeit early investment opportunity for its Seed Fund, which builds portfolios composed of seed and pre-seed companies. The Seed Fund’s investment team identified the potential of pursuing a deal with Bateau’s strong, driven founders and established investor syndicate. During the Seed Fund’s diligence process, references had glowing things to say about Jarvis and Hutcheson.

Along with First Check’s investment thesis, an alumni affiliation helped AVG gain access to Bateau’s pre-seed round. The team at Green D Ventures, AVG’s fund for Dartmouth alumni and friends, connected with Hutcheson and Jarvis, who both completed their undergrad at Dartmouth. AVG’s funds frequently leverage alumni networks to build relationships with entrepreneurs and established VCs.

First Check Fund and AVG deployed capital in a $1.5 million pre-seed round led by Founder’s Co-op, along with Green D Ventures and AVG’s Total Access Fund. Liquid 2 Ventures, Ride Ventures, and angel investors also participated in the round.

If you or a colleague is connected to long-term care providers (particularly senior care or nursing homes) interested in using technology to support their compliance and safety work, please contact CEO Paul Jarvis.