HealthQuest Invests in Healthcare Staffing Marketplace Nomad Health
When Alexi Nazem was a hospital doctor, he faced a mountain of paperwork and bureaucratic hurdles anytime he wanted to moonlight outside his hospital. For healthcare professionals side gigs like these are common, so why should the process be so burdensome? Inspired by the possibility of applying the concept of other online marketplaces like AirBnB to healthcare temping, he and four cofounders (including AlleyCorp founder Kevin Ryan) launched Nomad Health in 2015.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Nomad saw explosive growth as hospitals, already facing nursing shortages, raced to fill roles in overburdened ICUs around the country. While the pandemic has (hopefully) peaked and travel nursing pay rates are receding from all-time highs, the underlying shift of much more of the healthcare workforce engaged in temporary rather than full-time roles is expected to continue.
“One of the most important lessons that we've learned from this pandemic is that the clinical workforce wants to work that way,” says CEO Nazem, 40. “They don't want to be bound by these very rigid and sort of limited opportunities – just the same way that all the rest of the workforce and all the rest of the economy is changing.”
Looking to capitalize on this transformation, Nomad announced Monday it has raised $105 million in equity and debt financing led by Adams Street Partners and Icon Ventures, as the company expands beyond nurses to serve a much broader group of workers, including lab techs, ultrasound techs and physical therapists. HealthQuest Capital joined as a new equity investor, alongside existing investors Polaris Partners, .406 Ventures, AlleyCorp, and RRE Ventures. J.P. Morgan and Trinity Capital provided the debt financing. Nomad has raised more than $200 million in equity and debt to date.