Carestarter
CareStarter is an automated care management platform that delivers customized CareMaps—vetted resource lists matched by age, location, and diagnosis—to U.S. military families through IDIQ contracts with the Department of Defense, now operating within PCSIx.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2013
- HeadquartersAustin, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Carestarter does
CareStarter Technologies, Inc. is an Austin, Texas-based health technology company that operates an automated care management platform designed to connect patients, families, and providers to a curated ecosystem of resources. Founded in 2013 by Lamarque Polvado—a parent of a child with special needs—the company's core product is CareMaps, customized resource lists matched to individuals based on age, location, and diagnosis, delivered across six categories: Education, Family, Medical, Nutrition, Recreation, and Therapy. In 2021, CareStarter merged with Feedback, a digital ethnography firm founded in 2009 in 2009, adding behavioral science and ethnographic research capabilities that now operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary. Both companies were acquired by Professional Contract Services, Inc. (PCSI) in March 2026, forming PCSIx as the centralized innovation unit of the national nonprofit.
The company's revenue model is anchored in U.S. government contracts, particularly a single-award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract with nearly 100 labor categories spanning IT development, operational support, communications/outreach, and digital ethnography services. CareStarter holds a CAGE CODE (88pc7SAM) and SAM UEID (CC3EFP4QFLS3) for federal procurement. Services are provided free to military families; funding flows from government/DoD programs rather than individual servicemembers. The flagship deployment has been with the Travis Air Force Base Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) from 2020 onward, where the platform achieved the milestone of helping Travis AFB become the first base in military history to fully comply with federal law through five sequential contracts.
CareStarter's go-to-market is enterprise field sales via direct federal procurement engagement, with installation-level pilots (Travis AFB) serving as proof-of-concept for broader DoD expansion. Its customer base is concentrated in military and government segments—primarily EFMP-enrolled families and the Department of Defense—with secondary exposure to healthcare providers and adults with special needs. The Feedback subsidiary sells digital ethnography services as a separate offering to federal clients. Following the PCSI acquisition, CareStarter operates within PCSIx as the technology foundation, with Polvado transitioning from CEO to Executive Director of the new unit.
Carestarter firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Carestarter
- Legal name
- CareStarter Technologies, Inc.
- Website
- https://carestarter.co
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2013
- Operating status
- Acquired
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- CareStarter is an automated care management platform that delivers customized CareMaps—vetted resource lists matched by age, location, and diagnosis—to U.S. military families through IDIQ contracts with the Department of Defense, now operating within PCSIx.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Carestarter industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Care Coordination Software
- NAICS
- Services for the Elderly and Persons with Disabilities (624120), Individual and Family Services (6241), Health Care and Social Assistance (62)
- SIC
- Services-Misc Health & Allied Services, Nec (8090), Services-Social Services (8300), Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Care Management & Coordination Platforms (case/disease management workflows) (HLACAHAD)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Family Care Navigation & Care Coordination Platforms (multi-member care plans, referrals) (HLALAHAL), Care Navigation & Service Coordination (Medical, Social, Community) (HSABAIAB)
Keywords
Where Carestarter is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Austin
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices2 records
Markets served
Carestarter business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Government Contracts (IDIQ): CareStarter operates through Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts with government customers, including nearly 100 labor categories and a broad range of tasks. Task order requests can include IT development, operational support, communications and outreach, and digital ethnography services. The company has a CAGE CODE (88pc7SAM) and SAM UEID (CC3EFP4QFLS3) for government contracting.
- Federal/DoD Program Funding: Funded by government programs (military/DoD) rather than individual servicemembers. The Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) represents the initial focus area, with PCSI identifying the program's potential to improve how military families access disability-related services as a key factor in the acquisition. Services are entirely free to military members—no fees or paywalls.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Others | Free service for military families (EFMP) |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels2 records
Marketing channels7 records
Carestarter product offering
Product offeringCore offering
CareStarter operates an automated care management platform that delivers customized CareMaps—resource lists designed around age, location, and diagnosis—to connect patients, families, and healthcare providers to a vetted ecosystem of resources across six categories: Education, Family, Medical, Nutrition, Recreation, and Therapy. Through its Feedback subsidiary, the company also provides digital ethnography and behavioral science research services to government clients, including the U.S. Department of Defense, under IDIQ contract vehicles.
Product overview
CareStarter is an automated care management platform designed to connect patients, families, and providers to a curated ecosystem of resources. The core offering is the CareMaps product—a customized resource list matched to individuals based on age, location, and diagnosis across six categories (Education, Family, Medical, Nutrition, Recreation, Therapy). CareStarter merged with Feedback in 2021, adding digital ethnography and behavioral science capabilities. Both companies now operate under PCSIx, the innovation unit of Professional Contract Services, Inc.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- CareMaps Customized resource lists delivered to CareMembers, designed around age, location, and diagnosis. Resources are categorized into six areas: Education, Family, Medical, Nutrition, Recreation, and Therapy, and are filtered to be up-to-date, vetted, and—where medical—accept TRICARE or be affordable and accepting patients.
- CareStarter Platform Automated care management platform designed by caregivers for caregivers, assisting healthcare organizations to connect families to an ecosystem of resources. The platform persistently reaches out to providers and care coordinators to build and maintain a network of care focused on the whole family.
- Feedback Digital Ethnography Services Behavioral science and digital ethnographic research services that analyze unprompted human behavior across digital environments, including online conversations, social media, and digital communities. Offered through an IDIQ contract vehicle covering nearly 100 labor categories including IT development, operational support, communications and outreach.
Quantifiable outcome
- Travis AFB became the first base in military history to fully comply with federal law using CareStarter's platform
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use Carestarter
Customer profileNamed customers3 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Carestarter technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability1 record
Feature4 records
Carestarter partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Five partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.
- Weinfeld Education Group (WEG)minorWeinfeld Education Group, a 16-strong team of educational experts, partners with CareStarter to provide educational advocacy services for military families. WEG helps families navigate IEP processes and offers special discounts for military families (50% off for E1-E6 pay grades, 25% off for E7-O2). The partnership extends CareStarter's resource ecosystem to include professional educational advocacy.
- Professional Contract Services, Inc. (PCSI)corePCSI acquired CareStarter and Feedback in March 2026 to form PCSIx, a new innovation unit. PCSI is an award-winning, national nonprofit focused on employing people with disabilities. CareStarter now operates as part of PCSIx, continuing to develop its platform to support PCSI's mission to expand opportunity and improve outcomes for people with disabilities and their families.
- Cast & HueminorCast & Hue is recommended for deep interviews alongside Feedback's digital ethnography capabilities. Steve Koch and Jonathan Pathuis at Cast & Hue specialize in qualitative research that complements Feedback's ethnographic methods.
- FeedbackcoreFeedback is a wholly-owned subsidiary of CareStarter Technologies, Inc., specializing in digital ethnography and behavioral science research. Founded in 2009, Feedback merged with CareStarter in 2021, adding world-class behavioral science to CareStarter's platform. Now operates as the behavioral science unit within PCSIx.
- Travis Air Force Base (EFMP)coreTravis AFB was a key military installation partner where CareStarter delivered CareMaps to EFMP-enrolled families. The four-year partnership (2020-2024) resulted in Travis AFB becoming the first base in military history to fully comply with federal law. The EFMP-M office provided minimal family information needed to build CareMaps.
Scale indicators5 records
Recent moves7 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Carestarter competitors and assessment
Company assessmentEmerging players
- Waymark: Waymark provides care coordination services for Medicaid populations through partnerships with health plans and providers. It is comparable to CareStarter as a tech-enabled care management platform, though it targets a different payer segment (Medicaid rather than DoD/TRICARE).
- Hazel Health: Hazel Health delivers pediatric mental and behavioral health services in schools and via telehealth, serving families and children — a demographic adjacent to CareStarter's EFMP-enrolled families. Both companies serve pediatric populations navigating fragmented care systems, though Hazel focuses on clinical service delivery rather than resource navigation.
- Elemy: Elemy (formerly Sprout Therapy) provides pediatric care for autism and developmental conditions, addressing a population that overlaps with CareStarter's special-needs families. It represents an adjacent care-coordination and family-support model, though its modality (in-home ABA therapy) and commercial payment structure differ from CareStarter's government-funded platform.
Direct peers
- findhelp (formerly Aunt Bertha): findhelp operates one of the largest social-care resource networks in the U.S., connecting individuals to community programs across categories that overlap with CareStarter's CareMaps. It is the most direct comparable for the resource-matching and care-navigation core of CareStarter's platform, though CareStarter's specialization in military/EFMP families and TRICARE-aware vetting is differentiated.
- Quartet Health: Quartet Health is a care coordination platform that matches patients to behavioral health and social service providers based on clinical and social needs. The matching logic and multi-stakeholder workflow overlap directly with CareStarter's CareMap approach, though Quartet is focused primarily on behavioral health and commercial/Medicaid populations.
- Unite Us: Unite Us provides a closed-loop care coordination platform connecting health and social service providers across communities. It is comparable to CareStarter in automating cross-sector resource connection and tracking outcomes, though Unite Us targets broader Medicaid and community populations while CareStarter focuses on military special-needs families.
Others
- ICF International: ICF International is a government consulting and digital services firm with significant federal health and DoD practice areas. Its digital ethnography, communications/outreach, and IT service offerings under federal contracts are directly comparable to the labor categories available on CareStarter's IDIQ vehicle, though at much larger scale.
- Cast & Hue: Cast & Hue is a qualitative research firm specializing in deep interviews and ethnographic work that complements Feedback's digital ethnography capabilities. Cast & Hue is explicitly referenced as a recommended partner by CareStarter, making it a thematically related peer in the behavioral science research ecosystem.
Broad incumbents
- Maximus: Maximus is a large government services and health IT contractor operating across federal and state programs. It overlaps with CareStarter through health-related IDIQ-style federal engagements and care coordination programs, but operates at vastly larger scale and broader scope than CareStarter's focused EFMP deployment.
- Healthify (now part of WellSky): Healthify (acquired by WellSky) is a social determinants of health platform that connects patients to community resources and tracks closed-loop referrals. Its resource directory and referral workflows are highly comparable to CareStarter's CareMap capabilities, though it operates at significantly broader scale across health systems and plans.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Carestarter social profiles
Digital presenceCarestarter financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Carestarter leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles6 records
Carestarter subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries1 record
Carestarter funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds2 records
Investors1 record
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Carestarter M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A1 record
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Carestarter
What does Carestarter do?
CareStarter operates an automated care management platform that delivers customized CareMaps—resource lists designed around age, location, and diagnosis—to connect patients, families, and healthcare providers to a vetted ecosystem of resources across six categories: Education, Family, Medical, Nutrition, Recreation, and Therapy. Through its Feedback subsidiary, the company also provides digital ethnography and behavioral science research services to government clients, including the U.S. Department of Defense, under IDIQ contract vehicles.
Is Carestarter a public or private company?
Carestarter is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently acquired.
When was Carestarter founded?
Carestarter was founded in 2013. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Carestarter based?
Carestarter is headquartered in Austin, United States, in the North America region.
How does Carestarter make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Government Contracts (IDIQ) is the primary driver. The others are federal/DoD Program Funding.
Who are Carestarter's main competitors?
Emerging players on record are Waymark, Hazel Health and Elemy. Direct peers are findhelp (formerly Aunt Bertha), Quartet Health and Unite Us. Others are ICF International and Cast & Hue. Broad incumbents are Maximus and Healthify (now part of WellSky).
Does Carestarter have an API?
No public API is recorded for Carestarter.
What industry is Carestarter in?
Carestarter's product category is Care Coordination Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HLACAHAD, Care Management & Coordination Platforms (case/disease management workflows), with a secondary code of HLALAHAL, Family Care Navigation & Care Coordination Platforms (multi-member care plans, referrals). Its NAICS code is 624120 and its SIC code is 8090.