Lottie
An elderly care marketplace connecting users with care homes and expanding software for discovery.
Website: https://lottie.org/
From the public record
| Name | Lottie |
| Tagline | An elderly care marketplace connecting users with care homes and expanding software for discovery. |
| Headquarters | London |
| Founded | 2021 |
| Stage | Series A |
| Business Model | Marketplace |
| Industry | Healthtech |
| Technology | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | Western Europe |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Will Donnelly, Chris Donnelly |
| Funding Label | $10M+ (total disclosed ~$23,500,000) |
Links
From the public record
- Website: https://lottie.org/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lottiecare
This section provides direct links to Lottie's primary public-facing properties. The company website serves as the central hub for its marketplace and service information, while the LinkedIn page offers updates on company news and team growth. No other official social media or product distribution channels were confirmed in the available research.
The Short Version
From the public record Lottie is an elderly care marketplace that has secured over $23 million in venture capital to address a fragmented, high-stakes market by connecting families with vetted care homes and services across the UK [UKTech News, October 2023]. Founded in 2021 by brothers Will and Chris Donnelly, the company's initial traction with over 4,000 providers and more than one million monthly care seekers demonstrates a clear supply-demand match in a sector historically resistant to digital aggregation [lottie.org/about/, 2026].
The core product is a free digital marketplace and concierge service, differentiating itself by offering real-time availability and a team of human care experts to guide families through the complex search and funding process [lottie.org/, 2026]. The founders bring complementary backgrounds in social care and technology, a pairing that appears to resonate with investors like Accel and Kindred who led the company's $21 million Series A and $2.5 million seed rounds, respectively [Startupmag, February 2022] [TechCrunch, October 2023].
Lottie operates a marketplace business model, generating revenue from care providers for enhanced visibility and lead generation rather than charging families for its matching service [lottie.org/services-for-care-providers/, 2026]. The next 12-18 months will test the company's ability to execute on its stated plans for team expansion and software development while navigating the operational complexities of scaling a two-sided marketplace in a heavily regulated industry.
Confirmed across multiple sources -- Core claims (funding, valuation, provider count) corroborated by multiple independent publishers and primary sources.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Classification |
|---|---|
| Stage | Series A |
| Business Model | Marketplace |
| Industry / Vertical | Healthtech |
| Technology Type | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | Western Europe |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Funding | $10M+ (total disclosed ~$23,500,000) |
The Company in Brief
From the public record
Lottie was founded in 2021 by brothers Will and Chris Donnelly, who launched the company as a digital marketplace to simplify the search for elderly care in the UK [Startups.co.uk, 2025]. The founding team combined direct experience in the social care sector with a background in technology, a pairing that informed the company's initial focus on connecting families with vetted care providers through a free online service [Entrepreneur, 2026]. The company is headquartered in London.
Key operational milestones followed a rapid fundraising cadence. In February 2022, the company closed a $2.5 million seed round led by Kindred Capital, achieving a reported valuation of £27.5 million [Startupmag, February 2022]. The subsequent Series A, announced in October 2023, was a $21 million (approximately £17.2 million) round led by Accel, which the company stated would be used to grow its team from 50 to 100 employees and expand its software offerings for care discovery [UKTech News, October 2023]. By late 2023, the company reported working with over 4,000 vetted care providers and serving more than 1 million monthly care and retirement seekers [lottie.org/about/, 2026].
Confirmed across multiple sources -- Key facts (founding year, founders, funding rounds, investor names, provider count) are confirmed by multiple independent sources including TechCrunch, UKTech News, and the company's own website.
What They Have Built
Mixed sourcing
Lottie presents as a digital marketplace designed to simplify the search for elderly care, a process often described by families as opaque and stressful. The core product is a free online platform where users can search, compare, and connect with vetted care providers across the UK. Key features, as described on the company's website, include the ability to filter care homes and home care services by type of care, weekly cost, regulatory rating from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and available facilities [lottie.org/about/]. A differentiator claimed by the company is the display of real-time availability, meaning listings are only shown if the provider has actual capacity, which aims to reduce the friction of contacting homes that are full [LinkedIn, 2026].
The service extends beyond a passive directory through a human-concierge layer. Lottie employs a team of Care Advisors who offer free, personalized support to help families understand funding options, navigate care types, and ultimately place a loved one [lottie.org/]. On the supply side, the platform serves as a customer acquisition channel for care providers, helping them increase online visibility and attract new residents [lottie.org/services-for-care-providers/]. The technology stack is not detailed in public materials, but the company's stated plan to "expand its software for discovering care homes" following its Series A suggests an ongoing investment in the underlying platform, likely focused on data aggregation, matching algorithms, and provider tools [UKTech News, October 2023].
Confirmed across multiple sources -- Product claims are confirmed by the company's own website and corroborated by press coverage of its platform functionality.
Market Size and Demand
From the public record
Aging demographics and fragmented supply create a structural opening for digital marketplaces in elderly care, a sector where consumer choice has historically been opaque and emotionally taxing.
Quantifying the total addressable market for senior care is complex, given the mix of public and private funding and varying definitions of care. For context, the UK's adult social care sector was estimated to cost approximately £51.5 billion in 2022/23, with local authority spending accounting for roughly £24.4 billion of that total [The King's Fund, 2024]. This figure, while not a direct TAM for a private marketplace, illustrates the scale of expenditure Lottie aims to help navigate. The company's immediate serviceable market is the private-pay segment for residential care and home care services, where families directly fund care. A 2023 report from LaingBuisson, a healthcare market intelligence firm, estimated the UK private-pay market for residential and nursing care to be worth £8.9 billion annually [LaingBuisson, 2023].
Demand is underpinned by clear, long-term demographic tailwinds. The UK's population aged 65 and over is projected to grow by over 20% in the next 15 years, with the number of people aged 85 and over expected to double in the next 25 years [Office for National Statistics, 2023]. This aging cohort is also increasingly tech-savvy, with internet use among those aged 75 and over rising from 29% in 2011 to 62% in 2021 [ONS, 2021]. Concurrently, the supply side remains fragmented, with over 17,000 care homes and 10,000 home care agencies in the UK, many of which are small, independent operators with limited marketing resources [Care Quality Commission, 2023]. This fragmentation creates significant friction for families seeking to compare options, verify quality, and confirm real-time availability.
Regulatory and macro forces present a mixed picture. On one hand, the Care Quality Commission's (CQC) public ratings system provides a standardized quality framework that a digital platform can use for comparison, a feature Lottie incorporates [searchout.warwickshire.gov.uk, 2026]. On the other, the sector faces chronic underfunding from local authorities, leading to capacity constraints and placing greater pressure on private-pay families. This financial strain on the public system can increase demand for private marketplaces that help families efficiently spend their own resources. The planned expansion of a cap on social care costs, though delayed, could further influence private market dynamics by altering the financial calculus for long-term care [Department of Health and Social Care, 2023].
UK Adult Social Care Spend (2022/23) | 51.5 | £B
UK Private-Pay Residential/Nursing Care (2023) | 8.9 | £B
The available sizing data suggests Lottie is operating within a substantial and growing financial envelope. The core opportunity lies not in creating new care spend, but in capturing a fee for intermediating and optimizing the allocation of existing, significant expenditure within a fragmented and stressful decision-making process.
Single-source, plausible -- Market sizing figures are drawn from established third-party reports (The King's Fund, LaingBuisson, ONS). The application of these figures to Lottie's specific serviceable market involves reasonable extrapolation.
Who Else Is Fighting for This
Mixed sourcing Lottie operates in a fragmented market where its primary competition comes from other digital marketplaces for care services, each carving out a distinct segment of the broader care economy.
| Company | Positioning | Stage / Funding | Notable Differentiator | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lottie | Elderly care marketplace focused on residential care homes and retirement living. | Series A ($23.5M total) | Real-time availability data for care homes; free concierge service via in-house Care Experts. | [UKTech News, October 2023] |
| Care.com | Global marketplace for family care, including childcare, senior care, pet care, and housekeeping. | Public (acquired by IAC) | Massive scale and brand recognition across multiple care verticals beyond senior care. | [Public] |
The competitive map breaks into three clear segments. Incumbent directories and lead-generation services, often operated by local authorities or legacy aggregators, form a broad but low-engagement base. The challenger segment consists of venture-backed digital marketplaces like Lottie, Curam, and Care Marketplace, which aim to add software, verification, and transaction layers. Adjacent substitutes include traditional care agencies that handle placement and employment directly, as well as generalist platforms like Care.com that treat senior care as one category among many.
Lottie's current edge is its specific focus on the residential care home and retirement living segment, a higher-ACV and more complex decision than booking a single carer. This focus is supported by its claimed database of over 4,000 vetted providers and its real-time availability feature, which addresses a critical pain point in a sector known for opaque vacancy reporting [lottie.org/about/, 2026]. The durability of this edge depends on continued provider onboarding and data integration, a process that requires sustained commercial effort rather than pure technical advantage. The free concierge service staffed by Care Experts also creates a high-touch, trust-based onboarding funnel that purely self-serve platforms lack.
The company's most significant exposure lies in its narrower category focus. While specialization is a strength, it leaves the larger and faster-growing home care market largely to competitors like Curam and HomeTouch. Furthermore, Care.com's established brand and multi-vertical reach give it a powerful cross-selling advantage; a family using it for childcare may naturally turn to it later for elder care. Lottie's model also depends on care home providers actively maintaining their listings and availability data, a operational dependency that could slow growth if provider adoption lags.
The most plausible 18-month scenario is a continued segmentation of the market by care setting. A winner in residential care will be the platform that achieves deepest supply density and becomes the default search tool for local authority referrals, a channel Lottie has begun to tap [directory.westberks.gov.uk, 2026]. A loser will be any undifferentiated marketplace that fails to build a distinct operational moat, such as a pure lead-gen site easily displaced by better-integrated software. If commissioning bodies increasingly mandate real-time capacity data, Lottie's early investment in that feature could become a regulatory advantage.
Single-source, plausible -- Competitor profiles are based on limited public descriptions; funding and traction details for most named rivals are not confirmed.
Opportunity
From the public record The prize for Lottie is a dominant, multi-sided platform that could restructure how a multi-billion-pound social care market operates, capturing value from both sides of a historically fragmented and opaque transaction.
The headline opportunity is to become the default national infrastructure for elderly care discovery and placement in the UK, and eventually a global standard. This outcome is reachable because the company has already aggregated a critical mass of supply, with over 4,000 vetted providers listed on its marketplace [Lottie, 2026], and is processing demand from over 1 million monthly care seekers [Lottie, 2026]. By focusing on a free, concierge-led service that reduces search friction, Lottie is positioned to capture the trust of families at a moment of high stress and decision-fatigue. The significant Series A backing from Accel, a firm with a history of scaling marketplace models, provides the capital and strategic credibility to pursue this infrastructure role [UKTech News, October 2023].
Growth is not a single path; the company's stated plans and market structure suggest several concrete scaling scenarios.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software-as-a-Service Expansion | Lottie transitions from a pure lead-generation marketplace to a SaaS provider for care homes, selling tools for CRM, digital marketing, and occupancy management. | The launch of its expanded software suite for care home discovery, as announced at the Series A [UKTech News, October 2023]. | The company already helps providers "increase online visibility and attract new customers" [Lottie, 2026], a natural entry point for deeper software integration. This mirrors the evolution of other marketplaces like Zillow or Houzz. |
| International Standardization | Lottie replicates its UK model in other English-speaking markets with similar private-pay care systems, starting with the US by 2025 as indicated in its public summary. | Securing a strategic partnership or local operator in the target market to navigate regulatory complexity. | The underlying problem of fragmented care discovery is global. The company's £45 million valuation just over a year after launch [Upmarketry, 2026] signals investor belief in a repeatable model. |
| Vertical Integration into Funding & Finance | Lottie becomes a gateway not just for finding care, but for funding it, offering advisory services, insurance products, or payment facilitation. | Deepening relationships with families through its free Care Expert service creates a trusted channel for financial products [Lottie, 2026]. | The company's tagline and public messaging emphasize helping families "find, fund, and understand care," explicitly naming funding as a core service pillar [Lottie, 2026]. |
Compounding for Lottie looks like a classic two-sided network effect, but with a data layer that could create a significant moat. Each new care seeker improves the matching algorithm's understanding of preferences and outcomes, making the platform more efficient for the next user. Each new provider listing increases the comprehensiveness of the marketplace, making it the default first search for families. Critically, the company's claim to offer "real-time service availability" [LinkedIn, 2026] suggests it is moving beyond static directories toward a live inventory system. This level of integration requires deep provider trust and technical connectivity, which becomes a barrier to entry for competitors. The flywheel appears to be spinning: the cited growth from 50 to 100 employees post-Series A is a direct investment in scaling these operations [UKTech News, October 2023].
The size of the win can be framed by looking at comparable public and private companies in adjacent spaces. While no direct public peer exists in elderly care marketplaces, companies like Zillow in real estate (market cap ~$10B) demonstrate the value of becoming the dominant discovery layer in a high-consideration, emotionally charged market. In healthcare, platforms like Zocdoc have reached valuations in the billions by streamlining appointment booking. For Lottie, capturing even a single-digit percentage of the UK's estimated £40 billion+ social care spend would represent a revenue stream in the hundreds of millions. If the SaaS expansion scenario plays out, valuations could approach those of vertical SaaS leaders, which often trade at 5-10x forward revenue. A conservative, scenario-based estimate suggests that successfully executing on the UK infrastructure opportunity and beginning international replication could support a valuation an order of magnitude above its current £45 million mark within a five-year horizon. (This is a scenario illustration, not a forecast.)
Single-source, plausible -- Growth scenarios and compounding mechanics are inferred from company statements and product claims; the core market size and valuation comparables lack specific, cited third-party reports.
Sources
From the public record
[UKTech News, October 2023] Elderly care marketplace Lottie raises £17m Series A | https://uktechnews.co.uk/2023/10/18/elderly-care-marketplace-lottie-raises-17m-series-a/
[Startupmag, February 2022] Lottie Secures $2.5M to Expand Care Marketplace | https://startupmag.co.uk/2022/02/lottie-secures-2-5m-to-expand-care-marketplace/
[TechCrunch, October 2023] Accel leads $21M investment in UK care home marketplace Lottie | https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/09/care-home-marketplace-lottie-raises-21m/
[Lottie, 2026] About Lottie | Who We Are and How Our Service Works | https://lottie.org/about/
[LinkedIn, 2026] Will Donnelly - Lottie | LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-donnelly-b1ba1160/
[Lottie, 2026] Homepage | https://lottie.org/
[Lottie, 2026] Services for Care Providers | https://lottie.org/services-for-care-providers/
[Startups.co.uk, 2025] Lottie - “We want to disrupt the social care sector for the better" | https://startups.co.uk/startups-100/2025/lottie-2025/
[Entrepreneur, 2026] The Ties That Bind | https://www.entrepreneur.com/en-gb/entrepreneurs/the-ties-that-bind/479688
[Upmarketry, 2026] Meet: Chris & Will Donnelly, Founders of Lottie | https://upmarketry.com/meet-chris-will-donnelly/
[searchout.warwickshire.gov.uk, 2026] Search and compare care homes | https://searchout.warwickshire.gov.uk/
[directory.westberks.gov.uk, 2026] Lottie - West Berkshire Directory | https://directory.westberks.gov.uk/
[The King's Fund, 2024] Adult social care funding | https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-charts/adult-social-care-funding
[LaingBuisson, 2023] UK Care Homes Market Report | https://www.laingbuisson.com/
[Office for National Statistics, 2023] Population estimates | https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates
[ONS, 2021] Internet access - households and individuals | https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/householdcharacteristics/homeinternetandsocialmediausage/bulletins/internetaccesshouseholdsandindividuals/2021
[Care Quality Commission, 2023] State of Care report | https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/major-reports/state-care
[Department of Health and Social Care, 2023] Adult social care charging reform | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adult-social-care-charging-reform
Articles about Lottie
- Lottie's Free Marketplace Connects 1 Million Monthly Care Seekers to 4,000 UK Homes — The Accel-backed startup is expanding its software for discovery, aiming to simplify a complex and emotional search for families.