Why Longevity, Why Now – And Why Women-Led Companies Are Built to Win This Moment
June 29, 2026
By Umbreen Bhatti, CEO of Springboard Enterprises
By 2050, more than 2.1 billion people will be over the age of 60 – the largest demographic shift in modern history. With a $6.8 trillion global healthspan market, as well as a generation of people looking for better ways to age well, the opportunity to create economic value and improve millions of lives has never been greater.
And yet, the women-led companies best positioned to seize this opportunity – whose founders live the friction points of aging as caregivers, as patients, as the primary decision-makers for their families – remain systematically underfunded and underserved.
This is where Springboard comes in. We’ve spent more than 25 years proving that women-led companies outperform the market and we’re building the network to help them do it. Now we’re putting that track record and that ecosystem to work with the launch of our Longevity Accelerator.
Why Women-Led Companies Have the Advantage
Three out of five caregivers in the United States are women. And women 60 and older face the highest combined chronic-disease costs, the lowest incomes, and the highest out-of-pocket medical expenses of any demographic group. Women make the majority of healthcare decisions for their families. They experience the pain points of aging earlier, more intensely, and from more angles than anyone else.
Women-led companies don’t just understand this customer. Their founders, in many cases, are this customer.
That lived proximity to the problem – combined with the domain expertise many of these founders have built across medicine, caregiving, finance, and technology – produces companies that build for real families in real constraints, not idealized users in a pitch deck.
It produces solutions that work across race, class, caregiving status, income level, and life circumstance.
That is exactly the kind of thinking the longevity ecosystem needs most. And it is exactly what has been consistently overlooked by the capital that has flowed into this space.
Why Springboard Is Entering The Longevity Market Now
At Springboard, we have been accelerating women-led companies that change the world for more than 25 years. Our 950+ alumnae have raised $15 billion and generated $77 billion in portfolio value – with a nearly 90% business survival rate at three years. They have celebrated 240 exits and 28 IPOs. 10 are unicorns.
Behind those numbers is a simple conviction: when women-led companies generate 2.5x more revenue per dollar invested and burn 15% less capital than their peers, the gap is not a talent gap. It is an access gap – in capital, in networks, and in the rooms where the rules of the game get made. We close that gap.
Through rigorous programming, nearly 5,000 mentor-mentee pairings to date, and a robust community of more than 5,000 expert advisors, investors, and operators, we give women-led companies what they need to reach scale, reshape industries, and show the next generation what’s possible.
We’ve spent years building deep expertise in health through our Women’s Health and Health Tech Accelerators – to date, we’ve supported more than 80 companies building in healthcare. Our Longevity Accelerator is the next evolution of that work.
But building a healthier world requires thinking beyond healthcare alone. Health is shaped by the systems around us – from caregiving and financial resilience to housing, technology, community, and the environments in which we live and age.
That’s why this accelerator welcomes women-led companies building across the longevity ecosystem. The breakthroughs that matter most won’t come from a single industry. They’ll come from companies that connect disciplines, challenge assumptions, and create the conditions for people to live longer, healthier, more connected lives.
What We’re Building – and Who We’re Looking For
Springboard’s Longevity Accelerator is a three-part program that pairs the most exciting women-led companies in longevity with an unparalleled ecosystem of advisors, investors, and operators who are ready to help them scale. This is a high-touch, network-first experience, built around your milestones – the one or two things that, if you achieve them over the next six months, will fundamentally change the trajectory of your company.
We’re looking for women-led companies at the Seed (having raised at least $500,000) to Series A stage, with demonstrated traction – revenue, pilots, users, partnerships – who are innovating across health, care, housing, and financial independence to extend healthspan and improve how people age.
Program participation is open to senior leaders of any gender, race, and other demographic backgrounds at women-founded, women-led, or co-led companies. Senior leaders are individuals who hold significant and meaningful decision-making authority and/or equity stake in the company (e.g. CEO, COO, CCO, CTO and other C-suite equivalent level positions). We welcome companies based outside the US; however, you must be focusing on the US market and be able to navigate timezones and travel to fully participate in the program.
If your company helps people thrive, not just survive, as they grow older, we want to hear from you.
The Need Is Urgent and The Moment is Now
The aging of the global population is one of the most consequential chances to improve millions of lives – and one of the greatest business opportunities of our time. The companies that will define this market are being built right now. Springboard is here to make sure the right ones win.
Applications are now open through August 2, 2026. Learn more about Springboard’s Longevity Accelerator here.
