Further, a Charleston, South Carolina, company that sells AI sales and marketing software to senior living operators, has acquired Welbi, an Ottawa startup whose platform helps retirement and long-term care homes plan activities and track how residents take part. The deal was announced on October 21, 2026.
Terms, including price and structure, were not disclosed.
Welbi founder and chief executive Elizabeth Audette-Bourdeau will stay in charge of Welbi's operations and the team will stay in place, BetaKit and the Ottawa Business Journal reported. Welbi expects to grow to about two dozen employees by the end of 2026, roughly double its current size, and has already made three hires.
What Welbi built
Welbi launched in 2016. Audette-Bourdeau started it after her grandfather's health declined following a stroke and a move into a retirement home. The software combines what a community knows about each resident's interests and preferences with tools to plan and run recreation programmes, and it measures engagement so staff can see who is taking part and who is being left out.
Before the deal Welbi served about 1,000 senior care communities in Canada and the United States, and its customer base had doubled in the previous 12 months, according to BetaKit. Audette-Bourdeau told the Ottawa Business Journal the company was in hypergrowth.
Welbi's earlier customers include Responsive Group, which rolled the software out across all of its long-term care communities after a pilot, according to Welbi's 2022 funding announcement.
“What we learn about someone before they move in should shape the experience they have once they call a community home.”
Why Further is buying
Further describes itself as an AI partner for senior living and behavioural health operators. Its products include ProspectAI, SalesAI, ResidentAI, OpsAI and a competitive market intelligence tool, and it connects to the CRM and electronic health record systems operators already use. Its founder and chief executive is Wes Fuller. Audette-Bourdeau told BetaKit that Further has more than 170 employees around the world.
The argument for the deal is that senior living operators run one set of systems to attract new residents and another to look after them once they move in. Further wants to join the two, so that what a sales team learns about a prospective resident shapes their first weeks in the community, for example their first 60 days.
"What we learn about someone before they move in should shape the experience they have once they call a community home," Audette-Bourdeau said in the announcement.
Together the two companies reach more than 8,000 senior living communities. Audette-Bourdeau told the Ottawa Business Journal that talks began about a year before the deal and that clients kept telling Welbi that Further was similar to it.
"We've been looking for the right partner to accelerate our growth, and that's what we found," Audette-Bourdeau told BetaKit. She told the Ottawa Business Journal that the more the two sides talked, the more they saw how the two platforms could complete each other.
The funding
Welbi raised a seed round in 2022 that BetaKit put at 3 million Canadian dollars (about $2.2 million), backed by Graphite Ventures, MaRS IAF, SoGal Ventures and Roach Capital. Welbi's own announcement at the time said the round brought its total funding to $6 million, without naming the currency. No later round was reported.
What happens to customers
Welbi said existing Welbi and Further customers will keep the same dedicated support and that the two companies will combine their product roadmaps. It plans to expand its presence in the United States while continuing to hire in Canada.
For a small Canadian seed-funded company, selling to a larger US partner gives it a sales channel south of the border without having to raise a Series A.
Further announced the deal through a press release datelined Charleston. Neither company gave a timeline for combining the products beyond the shared roadmap, and Welbi customers will keep using the Welbi product for now.
