For the second time this year, Waud Capital Partners is making an investment in a home-based-care adjacent platform.
On Thursday, the Chicago-based middle-market private equity firm announced it is launching Fusion Health, a new platform that will provide clinical staffing services to health care facilities, health plans and providers, including of the home health care variety.
The new venture will be led by Bales Nelson as CEO, and Allen Dye as president.
“Bales and Allen have an impressive track record of innovation and value creation in health care staffing,” Waud Capital’s Chris Graber said in a statement. “We believe this partnership brings together the expertise and resources required to build the next differentiated health care services platform.”
Nelson is the former co-founder of CenseoHealth, which eventually became Signify Health (NYSE: SGFY). CVS Health (NYSE: CVS) agreed to acquire Signify – an at-home care enabler – for $8 billion in September of 2022. Dye is also a Signify veteran, having most recently served as the chief growth officer and COO of the company.
Waud Capital will own a majority stake in Fusion Healthcare Staffing, which is considered the first subsidiary of Fusion Health.
In February, Waud Capital followed a similar model to launch a post-acute care venture.
It partnered with former Cornerstone Healthcare Group CEO Steve Jakubcanin, and provided $100 million to grow the business up front.
In 2019, Waud Capital also invested in Concierge Home Care, a provider of home health services that offers primary care services, skilled nursing and therapy.
While the home-based care space deals with a valuation gap between buyers and sellers, investment experts believe these kinds of launches will become more common.
“Models like that, which are going to allow firms to take advantage of a little bit better pricing on smaller agencies, while still putting capital to work without having to do big platform deals – we’re going to see a lot of that,” Rebecca Springer, senior health care analyst at Pitchbook, recently told Home Health Care News.
Fusion Health plans to grow both organically and inorganically in the near-term future.
Its goal is to provide tech-enabled staffing solutions to groups of customers – like home-based care providers – that face major pain points in that area.
“Allen and I are excited to be taking the next step in our partnership with Waud Capital,” Nelson said in a statement. “We share a vision of the compelling market opportunity that exists for Fusion Health. Together, we believe that we will create a leading platform delivering innovative service offerings to address complex clinical staffing needs for customers across the health care continuum.”
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