A Place for Mom, founded in 2000, is a privately held, for-profit senior care referral service based in Seattle, Washington. The company provides personal and professional assistance to families in the search of senior care options. A majority of the company is owned since August 2017 by equity capital firms General Atlantic and Silver Lake. Its spokesperson is former Good Morning America host Joan Lunden. The Company provides information regarding more than 20,000 senior housing and elder care providers to seniors and their families throughout the United States and Canada through a network of local "senior living advisors". It also serves as a marketing tool for the thousands of senior housing communities and care providers to which it refers. It is the largest such service in North America. The company also develops and markets customer relationship management software for the senior housing industry. In addition, A Place for Mom owns and operates SeniorAdvisor.com, a consumer ratings and reviews site for senior care providers across the U.S. and Canada.
History
A Place for Mom was founded in July 2000 by Pamala Temple, John Temple, and Brian Trisler. In 2006, A Place for Mom received $9.5 million in venture capital from Battery Ventures. In July 2010 a private equity firm, Warburg Pincus, purchased a majority stake of the company. In November 2016, A Place for Mom purchased the competing service OurParents, adding 2,500 facilities to its network. On August 11, 2017, Warburg Pincus sold its majority stake in the company to growth equity firm General Atlantic and technology investment firm Silver Lake. The two firms acquired equal stakes and added two members each to the company's board of directors. Silver Lake added Managing Partner and Managing Director Greg Mondre and Director Adam Karol. General Atlantic added Robbert Vorhoff, Managing Director and Global Head of Healthcare, and Anton Levy, Managing Director and Global Head of Internet and Technology. Financial services firm William Blair & Company and law firmWillkie Farr & Gallagher advised A Place for Mom in the transaction.
In December 2017, a class-action lawsuit was brought against A Place for Mom for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, alleging that the service did not adequately inform users of, or receive written consent for the use of robocalling as part of its services. The parties reached a $6 million settlement in September 2019, but it was rejected by a Washington district court for not being based on "clearly defined objective criteria".
