IAC paid $500M for Care.com in 2020. Pacific Avenue Capital Partners paid $320M for it on March 16, 2026. That's a $180M loss for the category leader after six years of trying. Here's why we chose a different shape — and what it costs us instead.
"Care.com does not employ any caregiver and is not responsible for the conduct of any user of our site. All information in member profiles, job posts, applications, and messages is created by users of our site and not generated or verified by Care.com."
Care.com isn't broken because the team is bad — they were the category leader for almost twenty years. Care.com is broken because the shape is broken. A marketplace can't take responsibility for what passes through it; if it did, the unit economics collapse. So it disclaims and shifts the work to families. Then trust erodes, and rate-shopping accelerates the race to the bottom.
A cooperative is the inverse architecture. We employ the caregivers; we are responsible. Caregivers earn equity, not just hourly — so they stay. We build a relationship with one Boulder family at a time, not a database of strangers. We charge for outcomes (HSA savings unlocked, care delivered, equity vested), not for the right to talk.
The math wins because the structure was right at the start.
We don't connect. We employ. We attest. We deliver.
ComfortCard membership is $19/mo or $199/yr — the digital health card your family carries, the doctor-signed paperwork, and the on-ramp into Boulder's care grid. Care hours from co-op.care caregivers are billed separately at $35–45/hr (HSA-eligible). Cooperative investment terms for institutions and angels are at /founding-investor.