London-based Lottie has just raised an additional €7 million for its platform which is making the process of finding the right elderly care stress-free and simple. The startup has now reached a valuation of over €52 million and its growing fast.
Finding elderly care for loved ones is inherently a sensitive process. It’s something that often proves stressful, expensive and complicated. Indeed founders Chris Donnelly and Will Donnelly, experienced this firsthand when looking for the best elderly care for their grandmother. It pushed them to launch Lottie in 2021 – a free-to-use digital healthcare marketplace and concierge service that allows care and retirement seekers to locate and compare the UK’s best later-life living options at a fair price.
The funding
This latest capital boost for Lottie was led by General Catalyst and brings the company’s valuation to over €52 million – it’s fresh off the back of a €2.98 million raise in February this year, which was led by Kindred.
Lottie has also previously received backing from the likes of Monzo founder Tom Blomfield and Lendable co-founder Victoria van Lennep.
Chris Donnelly: “After closing with Kindred in January, we experienced unprecedented demand from funds. The first few months of 2022 have been hugely successful for us, so we decided to bring General Catalyst on by extending the seed round to further support our growth in the industry.”
Lottie: Reimaging the elderly care search
Taking a digital approach to helping find the best care provisions for our loved ones, Lottie offers a marketplace that enables easy-to-use search and comparison tools. It’s free to use, keeping it accessible to all and democratising how users find the best care options.
The news comes as demand for elderly care services continues to grow. Across Europe, the population is ageing and care provisions are under pressure. As people live longer, families increasingly need to find quality solutions for taking care of elderly relatives, while juggling other commitments such as childcare and work. It means the market for elderly care is also growing, reported to be worth trillions by 2029.
With Lottie, elderly people and their loved ones are given the freedom to design their ideal care package. Lottie then distils millions of data points on the 2000 high-quality care facilities and 300 independent retirement properties in England on the site to help people find the perfect home that meets their needs, wants and budget. Customers and enquiry numbers were up 115% in the three months to the end of June, compared with the previous three-month period between December 2021 and March 2022.
From outstanding care ratings and 5* customer reviews to luxury facilities and thriving home experiences, the impact-driven startup partners with the UK’s best care homes that offer an enhanced resident experience and home culture like no other.
Will Donnelly said: “COVID-19 has supercharged the move of the later living industry from offline to online, from the initial search process and how care seekers engage with later living communities, through to the adoption of digital care plans and new operational technologies. As well as assisting families and retirees in making important life decisions, Lottie is now helping our partner communities, both care and retirement, transition to the post COVID-19 digital world.”
The impact
The London-based marketplace is having a huge impact in the UK – supporting families across the country to choose better care options for their loved ones. Reflecting the growing demand, Lottie recently expanded beyond care homes into retirement living, giving retirees specialist support and expertise in finding alternative housing options for those who want to maintain their independence in later life.
Chris Bischoff, Managing Director at General Catalyst commented: “Today, elderly care is characterised by a broken care seeker experience, constrained supply of high quality, affordable homes and an increasingly challenging operating environment. Lottie is this unique hybrid of matchmaker, comparison website and care property specialist. Blending smart technology with a dedicated team of care experts, the platform is proving itself to be an indispensable ally in helping families and retirees make easy informed choices about elderly care. Lottie’s mission to ‘elevate elder care’ aligns with General Catalyst’s Health Assurance thesis to drive more digitally enabled, decentralised, preventative, and equitable healthcare.”
With the new funding, Lottie is set to expand nationally, adding new care partners and bringing its marketplace and software tools to more businesses and people around the UK.
Will added: “Lottie’s operational technology is already being used by hundreds of the UK’s most forward-thinking later living providers, which has been fundamental in allowing an improved customer experience, but also delivering better health outcomes for residents, and, in the long-term, will help deliver a sustainable industry which can meet the care needs of our rapidly ageing population.”
Committed to care
Further investment will also be made in developing Lottie’s technology offering to help care homes with all aspects of their business, for example, Lottie will be developing operational tools to help care homes and retirement operators to improve their day-to-day servicing of residents. It will also be used to help bolster the team of specialist care advisers that can handle the whole care home search process, from research facilities, discussing care facilities, negotiating residency fees as well as overseeing the legal process.
As part of its mission to drive change, Lottie is also planning to continue growing Seniorcare by Lottie, the UK’s only elder care benefits solution for businesses looking to support employees who are searching for care or helping an elderly loved one.
Chris Donnelly added: “Even though we’re rapidly expanding, we’re still so focused on Lottie’s core values. They’re at the heart of everything the team does. The care homes listed on Lottie are handpicked and have been vetted by Lottie’s team of care experts based on their care quality, home culture and ethical practices.
We’re more committed than ever before to finding the right homes for care seekers and ensuring families feel as safe, secure, and happy with their decision.The marketplace is just the start of our vision for the later living sector, we see it as a springboard to improve the global sector as a whole: from consumer transparency, technologies inefficiencies and lack of high quality data insights.”
via https://www.AiUpNow.com
July 25, 2022 at 04:25AM by contact@bcurdy.com (Patricia Allen), Khareem Sudlow
