Find Your Connection
Welcome to Your Community
We’re here to bring single people together, creating a friendly space for connection and support.
Why Clan?
In all my years working in startups, one message has always been the same:
“Solve a problem you have”
I’m a woman who lives alone: happily so. In 2025, two things happened to me. One, a matter of ambition over adhesion in adverse weather conditions. The end result? A fractured patella.
About six months later, I missed the last stair in a cat-related incident. A fractured ankle.
In both incidents, I was home alone, but thankfully able to get help. But what if I’d fallen from the top stair and knocked myself out? My friend circle is small, and not local. It could have been days before anyone realised something was wrong, and by then the cat would probably have started chowing down on me. (He’s a growing boy.)
I’m not close to an age where I’m ‘having falls’. But the ‘what if’ started keeping me awake at night.
On the professional side, I know what goes into a successful startup: I’ve been part of more than one. So I grabbed my bootstraps (delicately; the ankle is still tender), and decided it was a problem that needed fixing.
I don’t need a medical alarm. I don’t need a panic button. I just need some way for it to be known that I’m okay.
I taught myself to code. I built myself the website. Wrote the business plan, compiled the tech stack, arranged the beta testing… the list goes on.
Today, Clan is a proper service, but the idea hasn’t changed: a text, a reply, and a gentle nudge to someone who cares if that reply doesn’t come. A digital neighbour for a fragmented society.
The problem we're solving
There are 8.6 million people in the UK who live alone. It’s a number that’s growing rapidly. Millions more work from home, travel constantly, or manage health conditions without daily support. The majority are perfectly fine, most of the time. But when they’re not: when they’re unwell, isolated, or just having a rough week, the gap between ‘something’s wrong’ and ‘someone finds out’ can be unsettlingly large. Not everyone has friends nearby, or parents and family still alive or who regularly check in, for all sorts of reasons.
Most products designed for this gap are telecare systems: pendants, fall detectors, GPS alarms. They’re built for emergencies and make people feel like patients. Clan doesn’t.
We close the gap with a text message. There’s no hardware, no app, no location tracking. Just a daily check-in that takes one second, and a calm escalation that only kicks in when it’s needed.
For organisations, Clan bridges the gap between in-person checks on people and no contact at all. For mental health, domestic abuse, community care and more, it’s an invaluable (and affordable) tool in your armoury.
How we're different
Clan isn’t a medical device. It’s not an app you have to download and remember to open. It’s not a wearable that can get lost, broken, or left in a drawer.
It’s a text message. The same kind a friend sends. That means people actually use it — and it works on any mobile phone ever made.
We also do something most check-in services don’t: we ask for an emoji, not just a “yes” or “no.” Over time, that builds a private picture of how someone’s doing — for them, and for anyone they choose to share it with. No mood journals. No forms. Just a tiny choice made in the moment.
Who we serve
Individuals living alone. The 8.3 million people in the UK who may just want a daily check-in that doesn’t feel clinical.
Councils, charities, and housing associations. Organisations supporting vulnerable adults, isolated tenants and people with no community safety net. Clan gives them a lightweight welfare check-in they can offer at scale: without hardware, without apps, and without the stigma of telecare.
Mental health and recovery services. People being supported in the community who’d benefit from a daily check-in and a mood picture that builds itself.
Employers with remote or lone workers. Staff or freelancers who work alone and deserve a simple duty of care tool that doesn’t feel like surveillance.
What we stand for
Privacy by design. We don’t track your location. We don’t want it. The only data we hold is a phone number, a first name, and whether someone replied.
SMS first. Works on every mobilephone. No app required. No device to charge, lose, or replace.
Gentle escalation. Anchors are told only when someone has missed multiple check-ins. We never cry wolf.
Not a replacement for 999. If someone needs emergency help, they should call 999. Clan is a wellbeing check-in, not an emergency response service.
Get in touch
If you’re an organisation wanting to roll Clan out, email us at hello@joinclan.com. If you’re an individual wanting to try it, [sign up here] — it takes 90 seconds.
FAQs
Got questions? We’ve got answers! Here’s some help with common queries.
Still have other questions?
If you’re wondering about anything specific or need more clarification, feel free to check here. We’ve put together some useful insights to help you out! Our aim is to make it easier for you to engage with us.
Telecare is built for emergencies. It assumes someone is about to have a fall or a medical crisis, and it’s designed to summon emergency services. Clan is the step before that. It’s a daily wellbeing check-in — a way of noticing that someone hasn’t been in touch, before a situation becomes urgent.
There’s no pendant, no call centre, no GPS. Just a text message and a quiet alert to someone they trust.
There’s also no device to lose, break, or forget to charge. No app to install, keep updated, or fiddle with notification settings. If someone can receive a text, they can use Clan.
No. Clan works on any mobile phone that can receive a text message. That’s every mobile phone. They don’t need to download an app, remember a password, or have access to the internet. There’s nothing to install and nothing to update. Users don’t need to switch on notifications or worry about whether the app is running in the background.
If their phone can get a text — even an old Nokia — Clan works.
They can reply with anything. A thumbs‑up emoji is the quickest option, but any reply counts as a check‑in.
The emojis are there because they’re fast and they quietly build a mood picture over time, but Clan works just as well with a simple “OK” or “fine”.
The organisation is set up as the primary Anchor. That means if someone misses their check‑in, your team gets the first alert — and if you don’t acknowledge it within a set window, we send you a second one to follow up.
The person you’re supporting can also add a second Anchor if they want to — a family member, a neighbour, a friend. That’s optional. If they add one, and your team hasn’t acknowledged both alerts, we escalate to them as backup.
If there’s no second Anchor, the chain stops with your team. Two nudges, then it’s over to your own protocols. No call centre, no automated 999 calls. Just a calm escalation that makes sure someone notices.
(If you’d prefer the family member to be the first Anchor and your team to be the backup, we can flip it. We’ll set it up however works best for you and the people you support. But the organisation is always in the loop — you’re paying for the service, so you’re never out of it.)
We don’t publish a fixed price because it depends on how many people you’re supporting and what features you need. But there are a few things worth knowing upfront.
The cost is covered by you, not the people you support. They don’t pay anything. They don’t need a card, they don’t need to sign up to a subscription. You fund it, they use it.
For charities, councils, and public sector budgets, we keep pricing realistic. We know you’re not working with private sector margins. Get in touch and we’ll work something sensible out.
Yes. We start at 50 people.
We also ask for a three‑month commitment.
Not because we’re trying to lock you in, but because it takes time for people to settle into the routine, for your team to get comfortable with the dashboard, and for the thing to actually prove whether it works for you. Three months gives everyone a fair shot, and it gives us enough runway to support you properly.
We send a second nudge 90 minutes after the first missed check-in. We don’t raise anything after one miss.
If they miss the second one, the alert goes to the primary Anchor. In most organisational setups, that’s you. Your team gets a quiet text: “Bob hasn’t checked in today. Might be nothing, but here’s a nudge.”
If your team hasn’t acknowledged that alert within a set window, we send you a second message: “Still no response from Bob, and we’ve not heard back from you yet. Just flagging again.”
If the person you’re supporting has added a second Anchor of their own — a relative, neighbour, or friend — and your team still hasn’t acknowledged after that second message, we escalate to them as backup.
If there is no second Anchor? The chain stops with your team. Two nudges to the organisation, then it’s over to your own protocols — a phone call, a visit, whatever you’ve decided is appropriate. No automated calls to 999, no call centre.
Clan doesn’t dictate your response. It just makes sure you know.