After scaling Found from fewer than 100 care homes to nearly 2,500 care services, Lottie is turning its attention to billing, payments, and credit control.
London healthtech startup Lottie has acquired 25-year-old care billing software provider CareMaster, its second care software acquisition, as it expands its use of AI to tackle some of the most time-consuming manual processes still underpinning the UK’s strained social care sector.
The acquisition comes as the social care sector faces increasing pressure to digitise, with rising demand and more complex care needs putting already stretched budgets and workforces under further strain.
Founded by Bob Grimshaw and Colin Rooke, CareMaster works with nearly 75 care providers representing more than 750 care home locations across the UK. Lottie has spent the past four years developing market-leading, care-specific technology to overhaul age-old manual customer processes in social care, including how providers manage care enquiries, occupancy, billing, and other time-consuming administrative tasks.
It acquired Found in 2022, when the care CRM was used by fewer than100 care home locations. Since then, Lottie has rebuilt the platform from the ground up as AI-native, expanded it into home care and supported living, and will have grown it to nearly 2,500 UK care services by the end of 2026.
CareMaster builds on that progress, bringing 25 years of specialist expertise in one of the most complex and admin-heavy parts of running a care business: billing, payments and credit control.
The acquisition brings that customer base onto Found, alongside the pair’s decades of experience in care billing software. Lottie expects Found and CareMaster to support £3 billion in annual invoicing for care providers by the first half of 2027, up from more than £1 billion through Found today and a projected £2 billion by the end of 2026, as the sector contends with rising costs and staffing shortages.
Heading into 2027, the business is targeting record commercial growth, with international expansion also planned as Lottie looks to take its next stage of growth beyond the UK. Building on the acquisition and starting with credit control,
Lottie plans to use AI to reduce the manual admin involved in running a care business, before expanding its software into new areas across the wider customer journey from a family’s first enquiry about care through to a provider getting paid.
According to Will Donnelly, Co-Founder and CEO of Lottie, social care is one of the largest service-led industries globally, but behind the delivery of care, there is still a huge amount of administration and manual work involved in running a care business.
“That makes it a sector where we believe AI can have a hugely positive impact – reducing administrative burden, improving efficiency and freeing up teams to spend more time on what matters most: serving prospective customers and delivering great care.
Crucially, we believe that can all happen while preserving the deeply human-led nature of the industry.”
He shared that when the company acquired Found in 2022, it was supporting fewer than 100 care home locations. By the end of 2026, it will support nearly 2,500 care services.
“Acquiring CareMaster provides access to 25 years of specialist knowledge in one of the most complex parts of running a care business and an opportunity to deliver better for more care providers.
We see first-hand how stretched care teams already are, yet there is still so much time spent on manual work that simply doesn’t need to be there.
Having built the industry’s leading care billing software, payments and credit control are what we’re tackling next, but our ambition goes much further. We want to remove more of that admin across the entire customer journey, from a family first looking for care through to a provider getting paid, freeing up care teams to focus their time where it really matters.”
According to Bob Grimshaw and Colin Rooke, Co-Founders of CareMaster, said:
“Joining the Lottie team over the past 24 months has been a brilliant experience. It’s clear that Will and the wider Found team care as much about our partners as we do.
We’re confident Lottie is the right home for CareMaster, and we couldn’t be more excited to see our partners migrating to a far more advanced, future-proofed platform.”