Nomad Health plans to apply its tech-based staffing model to more healthcare jobs after raising $105 million in equity and debt and hiring a top marketing executive.
Announced this week, the round was led by Adams Street Partners and Icon Ventures and included participation from a new investor, Healthy Discovery Capital. This round brings Nomad’s total fundraising to over $200 million.
Founded in 2015, nomads Provides an online marketplace that connects providers directly to healthcare workers. CEO and co-founder Dr. Alexi Gharib Nazem said the new capital will help the company expand its services to laboratory technicians, physical therapists, ultrasound technologists and surgical technologists.
“Suppliers to the alliance have been asking us for several years when we will start offering them the opportunity to work through Nomad,” Nazem wrote in an emailed response to questions. “So, with supply and demand, it was a natural choice for Nomad to expand our platform to serve more clinicians.”
Nomad’s expansion comes as healthcare providers struggle to fill jobs in every category, a problem exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The company’s online marketplace is one of many solutions on the market.Not only does it compete with other tech-driven staffing agencies such as AMN Healthcare and trustworthy health. It also competes with a growing number of in-house agencies, initiated by suppliers looking to cut costs and retain nurses lured by the high salaries of traveler companies. Contestants included Pittsburgh-based UPMC and Omaha, Nebraska-based CHI Health.
Providers continue to see value in Nomad’s model, Nazem said, which he described as allowing clinicians and customers to control the market at a lower cost. He noted that as the pandemic receded, prices and volumes fell across the market. “But activity is still well above pre-pandemic levels.”
Nazem said Nomad serves more than 4,000 healthcare facilities and has a user base of more than 250,000 healthcare workers. It employs about 500 people, but plans to hire a few hundred more this year.
To help recruit clinicians in the new field, Nomad hired Maquel Shaw as its chief marketing officer. She most recently served as Interim Chief Marketing Officer for Overstock.com.
“Bringing the company’s transformative innovations and platforms to more clinicians and more health systems is critical,” she said in a statement. “I can’t imagine more important causes to support or more exciting companies to join at this critical time in healthcare.”
Nomad has also added HealthQuest founder and managing partner Dr. Garheng Kong to its board. HealthQuest has invested in TigerConnect, Castle Biosciences, Thirty Madison and Everly Health.
Other investors in Nomad include Polaris Partners, .406 Ventures, AlleyCorp and RRE Ventures, which all participated in the latest $105 million financing. JP Morgan and Trinity Capital provided debt financing.
Stocks make up the bulk of the funding, Nazem said. He declined to share the company’s revenue, profits or valuation. The company said in a press release that its revenue grew sevenfold and it was profitable.
Nazem does not expect demand for skilled professionals to decline. He cited an aging population that needs more care, a care backlog caused by the pandemic, and healthcare workers’ desire for greater flexibility.
“Faced with these drivers, it is clear that traditional medical staffing models have been disrupted and a 21st century solution is needed to support the current and future staffing market, as it is clear that the staffing crisis will persist post-pandemic. exist,” he wrote. “we believe
Nomad is such a solution. “
