For the past year, AllSeniorHomes.com co-founder Chris Rodde said he's been operating the business in "super bootstrap mode" with a small staff, bare bones office space and a tiny amount of angel financing. And while the bootstrap mentality will continue, Rodde has attracted a bit of a financial cushion as AllSeniorHomes looks to expand its business nationwide.

The company has pulled in a little more than $800,000 in new financing, with plans to attract more in the coming weeks. The capital, provided by MentorTech Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund associated with the University of Pennsylvania, will assist the company as it rolls out the lead generation service to new markets.

"We are going to throw gas on the fire, and really accelerate," said Rodde, who along with co-founder Jay Goldstein previously worked in executive roles at AllStarDirectories.

That Seattle company -- while not widely known -- made a bundle of money by passing student leads on to universities.

AllSeniorHomes is following a similar path, though as the name suggests its goal is to pass leads on to nursing homes and assisted living centers. The company launched its service last May with an online directory of 40,000 nursing homes, with the company saying at the time that facilities would pay anywhere from $10 to $60 per lead.

That contrasts with the business model of the juggernaut in the marketplace: Seattle-based A Place for Mom. It operates on a referral basis -- meaning it only gets paid when a senior moves into a facility.

Another large competitor is Caring.com, which raised $10 million last November from Shasta Ventures, DCM and others. Rodde said the San Mateo, Calif.-based company is primarily focused on display advertising as its business model. But that's not where AllSeniorHomes is headed.

"We are laser focused on doing lead (generation), and making money on lead gen," said Rodde. And that model appears to be working, which led to the latest financing round.

"We've got the hockey sticks that most startups want," said Rodde. "Traffic, leads, revenue are all really spiking." The company plans to begin hiring, adding to its four full time staffers.

MentorTech Ventures -- the firm backing AllSeniorHomes -- may not be well known in Seattle. But it is on the East Coast, given that it gets an early look at business ideas coming out of the University of Pennsylvania.

In fact, Rodde is a Wharton MBA alum whose former professor, David Reibstein, has joined the board along with MentorTech's Michael Aronson.

AllSeniorHomes operates under the corporate parent of Moseo Corp., and as part of that Rodde said the company could eventually expand its lead generation business into other categories.