Welbi eyes U.S. market as software company lands $6 million seed round to fuel expansion

Welbi’s bid to capture the North American market has received a massive boost in the form of a multi-million dollar funding injection that the Ottawa-based health tech company says will help it expand its platform across the United States

The six-year-old software company said Wednesday it had completed a $6 million seed round led by Toronto-based Graphite Ventures with participation from MaRS IAF, SoGal Ventures, Roach Capital and a number of angel investors. .

Co-founder and CEO Elizabeth Audette-Bourdeau told Techopia that the company’s fundraising efforts had generated such interest that the company ultimately decided to limit contributors to investors who she believed “could really do take the dial to the next level” as Welbi accelerates its expansion. .

“This round was really about bringing in the right people who could take us from where we are today to the next step,” she said. “We know we have a big market share in Canada, and we want to have the same in the United States”

It’s another big step forward for Welbi, who is based at the Invest Ottawa accelerator at Bayview Yards. The company helps retirement and long-term care homes design recreational programs and other activities for seniors and monitor the level of resident engagement.

Welbi has seen a dramatic increase in demand for its platform during the COVID-19 crisis, Audette-Bourdeau said.

As feelings of social isolation among seniors grew during the shutdowns, retirement residences began looking for better ways to ensure residents remained socially and physically active — a bespoke need for Welbi’s solution, said said the CEO.

New markets

Meanwhile, long-term care homes have also started to jump on the platform in a bid to help ease some of the administrative burden on overworked nurses and personal support workers who have been pushed to their limits as COVID took its toll on frontline healthcare workers.

After landing a contract with leading Canadian retirement home provider Revera in 2020, Welbi added a major player in long-term care earlier this year when it struck a deal with Responsive Group, which operates 19 long-term care facilities and 15 retirement communities. in Ontario.

Audette-Bourdeau said she expects the platform to be present in more than 350 retirement and long-term care homes by the end of the year. A growing number are located south of the border, where Welbi’s software is now used by three senior living operators in California, Indiana and Michigan.

The company’s revenue has soared 1,800% since the start of the pandemic, Audette-Bourdeau noted, with much of that growth fueled by the booming long-term care market. While two-thirds of Welbi’s business still comes from its former senior living clients, the long-term care sector is rapidly closing the gap, she explained.

“Our growth has been phenomenal as we have adapted to the entire retirement home market,” said Audette-Bourdeau.

The company has also proven to be nimble in other ways.

A few months into the pandemic, Welbi bolstered its platform by adding a contact tracing tool allowing users to quickly determine which staff and residents came into contact with an infected person, when, and for how long. The technology has since been adopted by all of the company’s customers.

Additionally, Welbi has partnered with software powerhouse PointClickCare to integrate its platform with the Mississauga-based company’s online health records software, allowing all nurses and support staff to instantly know which programs to leisure and health the elderly participate.

“They were the perfect partner to do this (deal) because they’re very innovative,” Audette-Bourdeau said of PointClickCare, which provides software to more than 27,000 senior care facilities and 2,700 hospitals in the states. -United.

New board members

As part of the funding agreement, Welbi is adding two new members to its board of directors. Among them is Steven Robertson, a former director of PointClickCare who co-founded CareWorx, an IT platform that catered to the senior care industry and eventually merged with Ottawa cloud service provider Fully Managed.

“He’s been there, done it, understands the senior living industry,” Audette-Bourdeau said of Robertson.

As sales continue to rise, Welbi continues to increase its payroll even as some tech companies are now rethinking their ambitious hiring plans in the face of soaring inflation, rising interest rates and a the imminent threat of a recession.

The company is currently looking to fill five vacant positions and expects to be at around 30 employees by the end of the year as it strengthens its sales and marketing team in the United States.

Audette-Bourdeau said the company is experiencing few headwinds as it moves forward on the path to expansion. It is already setting the stage for a Series A funding round that could take place as early as next summer.

“We shut down some communities in a week-long sales cycle, which we haven’t seen before,” she said. “COVID has really shown that there is a need, there is a problem, and Welbi is the solution. Recession or no recession, our seniors need our help.