Originally published by Senior Housing News on January 24, 2022
The nation’s largest online referral platform for senior housing is putting more pieces of its ongoing “transformation” into place with a new infusion of funding from a small handful of investors.
A Place For Mom (APFM) has raised $175 million in growth equity funding, the company announced Monday. Leading the funding was global venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners, a new partner for APFM with more than $30 billion in capital commitments invested in more than 400 companies. APFM’s existing investors, General Atlantic and Silver Lake, also contributed to the funding.
Eoin Duane, managing director at Insight Partners, is also joining the company’s board.
The new funding will help APFM further grow while helping to finish out some of the initiatives CEO Larry Kutscher laid out when he took the reins in 2019 and “putting fuel on the fire” for future growth. The company initially started searching for growth equity in the fall.
“We’ve finished a lot of the foundational transformation,” Kutscher told Senior Housing News. “Now, we’re going further in terms of things that we think are going to drive growth for us and the industry.”
For instance, APFM plans to rapidly scale up its marketing budget and increase it by as much as 30% annually for the next five years. Additionally, the company has been bulking up its workforce — especially by hiring senior living advisors. And Kutscher said the funding will also help APFM invest in new technology and boost the quality of its platform and services for prospective residents and their families.
“We think the investments will be very noticeable,” he added.
Insight Partners has invested in other technology-centered companies serving the senior housing space, including Element5, a post-acute care AI and robotic automation-based platform for post-acute and long-term care companies.
APFM currently works with about 16,000 providers in the senior housing space while employing about 1,000 people.
The company saw a 30% jump in revenue in 2021, and Kutscher believes that more residents and their families will come to use APFM’s platform in the coming decade. He also believes that operators themselves will increasingly turn to the company for help filling their units in the years to come.
“The two things we really count on are that we are a great experience for the families looking for senior housing … and we’re helpful to communities,” Kutscher said. “So, we think on both sides of the house, we have a lot of things going for us.”