Right-Sized Capital, Delivered Over Multiple Key Inflection Points

Further is a Charleston, South Carolina-based company that’s committed to being the leading artificial-intelligence-powered sales and marketing platform for senior living communities.

The company offers a suite of AI tools to enable senior living communities and other care-based organizations to better engage and convert prospective tenants and their families. These tools include virtual sales assistants, personalized email and SMS messaging, and automated scheduling, among others – all built around a conversion engine designed to maximize revenue potential.

Here's how we were able to work with their team – over multiple rounds and types of financing – as they scaled their business.

Growth Loans Add Fuel to a Proven Strategy

When RAC first met Further in early 2021, they were an emerging company with strong momentum and exciting growth potential. Originally launched as FamilyAssets.com, a lead generator for senior communities, the company was starting to transition from services to software. They had launched their virtual sales assistant product a year earlier, which already showed promising growth for their customers.

Under the founders’ leadership, Further was able to leverage limited capital raised primarily from friends and family investors to more than double revenue over the prior year while maintaining strong retention rates and establishing key indicators of product-market fit.

Now, they were looking for additional capital to accelerate their growth – largely through smart investments in sales and marketing. They wanted to hire a dedicated sales force to execute against a proven playbook. At the same time, they were keen to maintain the operational discipline that had helped to bring them this far and realized that they could likely achieve a greater market value once these new resources were fully ramped. For this reason, they favored a right-sized, non-dilutive growth loan over a larger equity round that would trigger a valuation event before they felt ready and dilute the cap table with more capital than was deemed necessary at the time.

RAC provided an initial growth loan in early 2021, which the company put to use toward several key growth hires. They also leveraged many of the resources offered through our Growth Advisory Program, including working with advisors like Jonathan Temple to help refine their ideal customer profile and enlisting the help of our Strategic Advisory Board to optimize their customer success organization.

During this time, Further expanded its product portfolio with the first of several additional products to further support senior living communities. The company also sold off its initial lead generation service to focus strictly on software.

RAC provided a second tranche in early 2022, powering additional fuel for Further’s growth trajectory.

Expansion, and RAC’s Series A Investment

Within a year of our initial investment, Further’s revenue had doubled once again. They had expanded their executive team with new senior leaders in marketing, finance, partnerships, and strategy. The continuing shift toward digital research had been a natural accelerant, with more buyers conducting their due diligence online – particularly in the senior living sector. Further's digital-first platform and deep expertise in online engagement positioned them to capitalize on these industry tailwinds.

Meanwhile, the team had identified several opportunities for expanding their addressable market with additional care-based communities and were ready to put their new theses to the test. They were ready to double down on a proven playbook with a larger equity investment – which we were enthusiastic to provide in April 2022, as the lead investor in Further’s Series A.

We continue to work closely with Further’s leadership team in support of their growth journey. They were also one of the first portfolio companies to leverage our recently launched RAC Recruiting offering, through which we were able to help them fill five roles within the first year of the program – a Vice President of Sales, Director of Operations, Director of Solutions Engineering, and two Account Executives.

The company has gone on to raise a Series B round, led by Silversmith Capital Partners, which they’re using to build more AI-powered product suites, expand their market reach, and ramp up their team.

It's been an honor to be part of Further’s journey as they’ve scaled, and we look forward to continuing to support their team in this next chapter.

"Partnering with RAC has transformed our company. In each of our rounds of financing they provided the right type of capital at the right time and the operational support has been essential for helping us solve new challenges as we grow. I can’t imagine a better financial partner.”

- Wes Fuller, CEO at Further

The above executive was not compensated by Riverside directly for such statement, however the individual has or continues to have an economic relationship with Riverside, including potential incentive awards for performance.

Case study should not be relied upon for investment decision making and should not be considered an offer or solicitation of securities or investment services. For informational purposes only and intended for General Partners or Management teams considering partnering with The Riverside Company. Portfolio company selected based on non-performance criteria.