How WalkAbout Helping India’s Older Adults Find Purpose After 55
More than two decades ago, while living in the United States, Deval Delivala noticed a striking difference in how older adults lived. People in their eighties remained active and independent skiing, cycling, hiking and driving themselves. In the West, those above 55 rarely saw themselves as “old.”
The contrast with India was sharp. Back home, older adults were often dependent on their children and rarely pursued hobbies or new activities. “When I was living outside India, I figured that what we think is old in India is not actually old,” Delivala recalls. “In the West, people in their 80s are skiing, cycling, hiking, and even driving themselves. But we call 60-year-olds senior citizens.”
She wanted to change that perception and the lived reality that came with it.
From Uber to a New Purpose
Delivala spent eight years at Uber before personal reasons brought her back to Mumbai in 2013. She continued with Uber India until 2018, then took a year off to rethink her path. During that period she realised she wanted to reshape how older adults in India lived and how society viewed ageing itself.
Just before the COVID-19 pandemic she joined GetSetUp as an angel investor and later became a co-founder. The California-based platform, founded in late 2019 by Neil Dsouza, Lawrence Kosick and Delivala, is an online social learning and interactive community designed specifically for “active agers”—a deliberate alternative to the label “old.”
GetSetUp launched operations in India in 2021. Last year the Indian entity rebranded as WalkAbout India Pvt Ltd, a dedicated community platform for adults aged 55 and above. Delivala and Ashwini Kapila co-founded WalkAbout, which focuses on the earlier stages of the ageing process.
Delivala believes the work people put into physical and mental well-being in their forties, fifties and sixties can enable an independent, active life well into their eighties. With people often living four decades after retirement, she argues that time cannot simply be spent at home. “You have to do something to improve longevity, your mental health and physical health,” she says.
She also observes a generational shift. “My parents’ generation is ageing very differently from my grandparents’ generation. They are definitely more active, both physically and mentally, and they have the time and money to pursue whatever they were passionate about.”
Four Pillars of Engagement
WalkAbout structures its offerings around four verticals: finance, health, enrichment and social.
In the finance vertical, sessions help people in their late fifties and early sixties with financial planning, will writing and related topics. The platform also runs an accelerator programme for those who want to start a business. Participants typically bring years of experience, wisdom and networks but may lack structured guidance. Ideas range from packaged foods to pottery.
The 12-week accelerator teaches pricing, pitching, licensing, payments, online marketing, legal and compliance issues, and scaling. It ends with a Demo Day in Mumbai where participants present their plans. Five winners each receive ₹1 lakh. “When people are in the 60s, it’s less about the money, it’s about the support,” Delivala notes. The programme is designed more as community-building than a traditional venture initiative. Her broader aim is to help Gen X feel as confident as younger generations about starting businesses.
The health vertical addresses both physical and mental well-being. Physical offerings include strength training, yoga and movement classes. An athlete programme sponsors senior athletes competing in government-recognised sports for a year. On the mental-health side, WalkAbout creates spaces for people to discuss loneliness, grief, illness and the search for purpose. Delivala observes that while phones have expanded access to the wider world, they have sometimes narrowed connection at home.
Enrichment focuses on hobbies many in the previous generation never had the chance to pursue. Classes cover music, dance, poetry, art, craft and languages. The social vertical features sessions taught by active adults themselves—for example, a Bharatnatyam class led by a 77-year-old retired banker who began learning the form at 50. Peer-led teaching reduces judgement and reinforces the message that it is never too late to start.
Offline experiences include weekly pickleball sessions and “Grey Matter Games”—brain gym activities with puzzles and mental maths designed to keep cognitive skills sharp. These currently run in Mumbai, with plans to expand to other cities.
Building a Community for Longevity
Funding for the programmes comes from private investors. WalkAbout raised a small round in September 2025 from angel investors and HDFC Ventures.
Across all its offerings, the platform’s consistent theme is learning, purpose and better living for older adults. Delivala’s underlying belief is straightforward: the habits and community built in the decades before and after retirement shape whether later life is defined by dependence or by continued engagement.
By creating structured opportunities for financial confidence, physical activity, mental connection, creative pursuits and peer inspiration, WalkAbout is working to normalise an active, purposeful approach to ageing in India—one that treats the years after 55 not as a winding down, but as a new chapter with its own possibilities.