T-shirt Ventures raises $11M to supercharge our support of people living with disabilities and long-term health needs

Here at T-shirt Ventures, we exist to support people living with disability and long-term health needs to create and live the life they want. 

That’s why we’re beyond excited to have raised $11 million in  a Series A funding round. 

We’ll be investing in three key areas that help us support people currently accessing the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS): technology, products and our people. 

The NDIS can be complicated and tricky to navigate. The technology and products we build at T-shirt aim to cut through the confusion and afford people the choice and control over their lives that they deserve.

A bit of a history lesson

This vision for a better world for people with disability was born in 2018. Our co-founders Tom Blinksell and Jonathan Salgo started the company with common ground. 

They both have personal experiences with loved ones in the NDIS and a shared desire to make the scheme work better for those who rely on it.

Jono had this to say about why the experience of people with disabilities should matter to everyone:

“When you have a family member with a disability, you realise how far we are from being an equal society. People with disability is a group that anyone can join at any time. Tomorrow your child could be diagnosed with autism, you could suffer a spinal cord injury or be diagnosed with Parkinson’s. In all these cases, the NDIS is there to turn to and we’re there to offer you choice and control with our services and  tech solutions,”

Where we are now

It’s been four years since the company essentially started in a kitchen in Paddington, Sydney. We’ve got over 100 staff around Australia and New Zealand have helped 15,000 families navigate the NDIS (and counting!).

We’ve now got two service and product offerings under the T-shirt Ventures umbrella: Provider Choice and HeyHubble.

Provider Choice is a national NDIS plan management provider. It’s the offering that kicked us off the ground and made everything possible. 

Our dedicated team of plan managers spend their days providing NDIS expert advice and taking the administrative burden off participants by paying provider invoices. 

The relationships they build with people day in and day out are life-changing.

HeyHubble is our newest product offering but sits right at the heart of why the company was founded in the first place. 

HeyHubble fills a gap in people’s ability to understand how to use their NDIS plan and subsequently access quality, trusted providers based on their individual needs and preferences. The essence of choice and control.

Where to from here?

“We’ll use this latest round of funding to further develop our technology platform so that we can continue to deliver world-class technology to our customers as we scale,” says Tom.

But what do we mean by scale? In Tom’s words:

“To us, scale means developing technology solutions that can support every child born with a disability in this world, and any person who acquires a disability.”

This next chapter will be people-powered

We’re looking to the sky as our limit on the positive impact we can have. 

We’ve got $11 million capital raise under our belt and the strategic partnership of HEAL Partners in the form of T-shirt Board’s new chairman, Chris Rex.

But we can only create change through the hard work of our diverse, talented and passionate team. 

Nadine, our Head of People & Talent, had this to say about what it means to work at T-shirt:

“We talk a lot about the fact that a company is just a collection of people who come in (or log on) every day and share common values and goals. 

We see it as our responsibility to truly take care of our team, both in and outside of work, while fostering a culture where openness, big hearts, and passionate change-makers can thrive. 

Empowering our team to do their best work while feeling totally themselves is the ultimate goal in my world and this is so that we can help support individuals and families living with disabilities and long-term health needs.”

There’s so much to do - and we can’t wait

The energy in the team has been sky-high because we cannot wait to keep creating and solving key issues in the lives of the people we work for:  people with disabilities and long-term health needs.

The complexities of the NDIS and a host of societal inequalities haven’t made this an easy task, but we’re up to the challenge.

We’re currently expanding our team in all areas of the business. If you’re excited by our mission, check out our careers page to see how you can be part of this new chapter at T-shirt Ventures.