In 2017, Duncan Pettigrew co-founded Kinto with a mission to support the many families navigating the complex and emotionally demanding world of dementia care. Born out of Redstar Ventures, a business consulting agency in Cambridge, MA, Kinto was inspired by research showing the growing caregiving needs of the aging U.S. population.
With a mission to make high-quality dementia care more accessible and scalable, Kinto first introduced a mobile app designed to help caregiving families connect and share support. Over time, the company evolved into a comprehensive coaching platform that connected caregivers with trained professionals such as social workers and therapists. In 2021 Kinto was selected as a finalist in a Digital Health Sandbox Challenge sponsored by the Massachusetts eHealth Institute (MeHI). The program, facilitated by Lever, challenged innovators to find solutions to help unpaid family caregivers manage responsibilities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and ease transitions back to work.
Duncan recalls that Lever’s challenge program pushed the Kinto team in several ways, including refining how they presented the company to investors. “Having time to refine the pitch with feedback and develop it piece by piece in a structured way was incredibly helpful,” he notes. “The result was a much clearer, more focused pitch. Some of the language I came up with then is still how I describe Kinto today.” Duncan adds that working alongside other startups and peers in the innovation ecosystem was another key benefit of the program.
Kinto won the Sandbox Challenge and was awarded a $100,000 grant to test and refine their product. As part of this process, the company was matched with MITRE, an R&D organization and member of the Massachusetts Digital Health Sandbox Network. Duncan notes that Kinto’s participation in the Sandbox Challenge, and its partnership with MITRE, provided the team with valuable access to information and experts in the healthcare industry. He also credits the partnership with increasing the company’s credibility and better positioning it for future growth. Kinto subsequently contracted with a large healthcare insurance company and received more than $6 million in non-dilutive funding through NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants, which among other things provided support for a 500-person clinical trial. “That funding validated the impact we were trying to make,” Duncan notes.
Kinto’s steady progress continued to attract attention. In April 2024, the company was acquired by Seattle-based Rippl, a leading dementia-focused specialty care provider. The Kinto acquisition was announced as “a joint effort leveraging leading AI architecture and technology to scale access to expert dementia care for patients and families, helping keep them at home and out of the ER and hospital.”
While the entire Kinto team joined Rippl as part of the acquisition, Duncan notes that he later chose to step away from the company and is now consulting to other companies on financial planning, analysis, and venture capital development.
Reflecting on the overall Kinto journey, Duncan points to the satisfaction he and his team took from building something meaningful and impactful for an important population, the caregivers.
“As a team, we had the opportunity to learn and grow together, creating technology in support of vital work of family caregivers,” he says. “As a company, it was rewarding to be part of the complete arc of venture development, from idea to acquisition.”
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