India will soon have a startup that aims to reduce the loneliness of the elderly. Shantanu Naidu, assistant to business tycoon Ratan Tata, will start GoodFellows, who will recruit younger people to help older people in their daily lives. “GoodFellows is a future profit-oriented start-up that offers cross-generational friendship and defines itself as a“ support company ”. It employs young, educated graduates up to the age of 30 to build intergenerational friendships between themselves and the elderly to reduce loneliness, ”Naidu said in a note, according to VC Circle. This startup is backed by the former president of the Tata Group, but it is unknown how much money he is investing in the company.

“Cross-generational friendships are a friendly, meaningful, and genuine way to help elderly single people with camaraderie and warmth, like GoodFellows offers. I can’t wait to see GoodFellows play out and wish Shantanu and his young team all the best, “said Tata in a statement emailed to Financial Express. “They also helped the elderly with paperwork and emails, or just hung out with great friends,” added Naidu. According to a report published in Your Story, every Goodfellow undergoes several psychometric tests designed to assess empathy. These young graduates are spirited personalities who are essentially on-demand grandchildren with one goal: to drive the loneliness out of the lives of the “grandparents” they are assigned to.