A health care startup founded a little more than two years ago has just closed one of the largest capital raises in Nashville history.
Monogram Health has raised a $160 million round of funding, led by private equity firm TPG Capital. According to the news release, the round was joined by existing investors Frist Cressey Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners, as well as Louisville-based insurance giant Humana Inc. and other strategic investors.
The $160 million round of funding is notable for a Nashville-based startup, even one inside the city’s $92 billion health care industry. In 2019, Monogram’s raise would have been the largest in Music City by a measure of $100 million. The round would have been Nashville’s third-largest last year, behind solar energy firm Silicon Ranch and Quincy Health, according to Nashville Business Journal research.
The investment will be used to continue Monogram’s expansion across the U.S., according to the release. The kidney care management company is currently in 20 states and in April opened an operations center in Arizona to support growth in Western states.
“Welcoming TPG Capital alongside noted national and regional strategic investors further validates our industry leading kidney model of care,” Sen. Bill Frist, Monogram’s board chairman, said in the release. “We look forward to working with the TPG team as Monogram further solidifies its role as the preeminent leader in personalized, compassionate and evidence-based kidney care for patients.”
Founded in January 2019 by Michael Uchrin and Frist, the kidney disease management company works with health insurance plans, such as Humana Medicare Advantage and Commercial, to care for chronic kidney disease patients inside their homes. Depending on the stage of the patient’s disease, Monogram works to either stabilize a patient’s disease progression, prepare the patient for dialysis or transplant or improve treatment results for patients already on dialysis.
As part of the investment, Todd Sisitsky, co-managing partner of TPG and co-leader of its health care franchise, has joined Monogram’s board of directors. San Francisco-based TPG Capital has invested more than $21 billion into the health care sector since 2003, according to its website, and is the private equity platform of global alternative asset firm TPG.
“Monogram is transforming one of the most complex and underserved areas of health care,” Sisitsky said in the release. “As someone who has supported a family member through end–stage renal disease, I witnessed first–hand the challenges and deficiencies that Monogram is addressing. I couldn’t be more optimistic about the future of the company and the lives it’s changing every day.”
The deal comes less than four months after Monogram received an $8.1 round of funding led by Scan Group, whose holdings include Scan Health Plan (stylized: SCAN Health Plan). That funding came less than a year after Monogram closed on a $7 million round of funding led by Frist Cressey Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners, which brought the company’s lifetime cash raised at the time to $12 million.
Last year, Uchrin told the NBJ that Monogram was preparing for a period of rapid growth in part because of the enactment of the 21st Century Cures Act, which allows Medicare beneficiaries with end-stage renal disease to enroll in 2021 Medicare Advantage plans through private insurers for the first time.
“Despite more than 20 percent of all Medicare spending going toward Americans with kidney disease, the population continues to grow and experience often dismal health outcomes and quality of life,” Uchrin said in the release. “Our model of care dramatically improves health outcomes and reduces spending by delivering the care and services these individuals truly need and want, right in their own homes. One by one, our patient successes are adding up to significant value for our partners and driving accelerated demand for our services.”
