A Chat with James Townsend, Co-Founder and CEO at Carer Support Platform: Mobilise

Tell us about Mobilise

Mobilise is the UK’s largest community of unpaid carers. Created and led by carers, our platform provides round-the-clock support, expert advice, and peer-to-peer community for anyone who is looking after someone, and we do so on behalf of local authorities. There are over 10 million people in the UK providing some form of unpaid care. But many of us feel as though we have to cope on our own, or are unsure where to turn for support. Mobilise provides easily-accessible, readily available advice and support for these people to connect with others who understand what it’s like to care.

Mobilise works with local authorities to support them to fulfil their duty to promote and provide services to unpaid carers in their area, and to put wellbeing at the heart of the services on offer. We’re currently working with around 25% of local authorities across England and Scotland, alongside NHS bodies, to help deliver enhanced support for anyone looking after someone.

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

Both my co-founder, Suzanne, and I have first-hand experience of looking after family members. Suzanne has cared for her husband, who has Parkinson’s, for the past 20 years. Meanwhile, I have helped to support my mum, who was diagnosed with MS when I was 6, all my life. We understand exactly how it feels when someone close to you is diagnosed with a long-term condition, as well as the responsibilities that can come with supporting or caring for them. There are millions of people in the UK, like us, who care. But so many are left to do so without support.

We wanted to create an accessible community that would connect the UK’s unpaid carers, and support people to navigate the daily realities of caring. What started during the pandemic as a “virtual cuppa” has since snowballed. Our community now comprises over 100,000 unpaid carers, and we’re working with local authorities all over the UK to help them deliver enhanced, remotely accessible support for this vital group.

Tell us about your core product or service

At its heart, Mobilise is about community. Caring can feel isolating, but it doesn’t have to be. What makes our platform unique is the way we use technology to connect people with others who’ve been through something similar. There’s a huge power in lived experience: the empathy, the reassurance, the sense of “you’re not alone.” By mobilising that, we create a community that is always on, always available, and built around trust.

Our Mobilise Hub provides a safe space for carers to find crucial community and peer support. Importantly, the online community is available remotely and 24/7. This enables us to support the UK’s growing number of carers at scale. At the same time, it makes it easier for people with caring responsibilities to access support whenever they need it – even if it’s 2am and traditional services are closed.

AI-driven tools – such as our AI-powered Mobilise Assistant – make those connections easier and more personalised. It helps carers find the most relevant conversations, resources, or peers, so that when they come to Mobilise they immediately feel understood. This combination of smart tech and human empathy is why 83% of carers in our community say we’ve provided helpful support for their role, and 80% say the information and connection we provide has had a strong positive impact on their lives. Over time, this same technology will also help us reimagine how system capacity is managed – but the starting point is always human connection.

What most excites you about social care innovation?

Social care is at a turning point. For too long, digital has been seen as simply a way to move paper processes online. But technology gives us the chance to go much further – to completely reimagine the relationship between local authorities and the carers they support.

With over 10 million people already providing unpaid care in the UK, and another one million expected to take on caring roles in the next decade, the need for new approaches is urgent. Around 82% of people who access Mobilise’s services tell us they have never previously engaged with formal support. Digital can help us reach these ‘hidden’ carers, democratise access, and build services that adapt to each person’s journey.

That’s what excites us: creating ambitious, future-facing services that feel genuinely human, because they combine the scale of technology with the empathy of lived experience.

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome along the way?

Scaling trust. In social care, people don’t adopt new tech just because it’s clever, they adopt it because it’s safe and genuinely helps. Equally, the fact that we’re often engaging with carers about some of the most intimate situations in their lives means that the relationship we build with them has to be based on a strong sense of trust.

Early on, our challenge was proving that a digital service could be as trusted as in-person support. We overcame that by designing everything with carers, not just for them. The fact that the majority of people using Mobilise have never engaged with formal support before signals to us that this approach is working. Our service is actively encouraging people to access support for the first time – proof that they both trust and want to engage with on-demand support services.

What is your number one piece of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs?

Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. Tech changes and markets shift, but if you’re obsessed with solving a challenge, you’ll keep iterating until you make a difference. For us, the challenge was clear: millions of unpaid carers struggling in silence. That clarity kept us going through the tough patches, and it’s why Mobilise is now on a path to transform the way the UK supports carers at scale.

What can we hope to see from Mobilise in the future?

We’re just getting started. Over the next few years, we’re working to grow from being the UK’s leading carer community to providing the digital infrastructure that underpins carer support across local authorities, charities, and the NHS. Our new AI-powered Dynamic Carers Assessments will help transform how local authorities discharge their statutory duties – reviewing needs and providing support in real time, rather than waiting weeks or months.

Our vision is a world where no carer feels invisible, and where tech enables all those with caring responsibilities to get the right help at the right time. We’re building this alongside amazing partners in the sector, because when we get it right together, everybody wins. Carers, local authorities, and society as a whole become stronger.