Nomad Health plans to apply its technology-based staffing model to more jobs in healthcare after raising $105 million in equity and debt and hiring a top marketing executive.
Announced this week, the funding round was led by Adams Street Partners and Icon Ventures and included participation from a new investor, HealthQuest Capital. The round brings Nomad’s fundraising total to more than $200 million.
Founded in 2015, Nomad offers an online marketplace that connects providers directly to healthcare workers. The new capital will help the company expand its service to lab techs, physical therapists, ultrasound techs and surgical techs, according to Dr. Alexi Gharib Nazem, the company’s CEO and co-founder.
“Allied providers have been asking us for a few years when we would start offering opportunities for them 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 even 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 numerous solutions on the market. It competes not just with other tech-driven staffing agencies, such as AMN Healthcare and Trusted Health. It also competes with a growing cadre of in-house agencies launched by providers hoping to lower costs and retain nurses tempted by the higher pay of travel staffing firms. Entrants include Pittsburgh-based UPMC and Omaha, Nebraska-based CHI Health.
Nazem said providers continue to see value in Nomad’s model, which he described as putting clinicians and clients in control of the marketplace at a lower cost. Pricing and volume in the market overall have dropped as the pandemic ebbs, he noted. “But activity is still well above pre-pandemic levels.”
Nomad provides service to more than 4,000 healthcare facilities and has a user base of more than 250,000 healthcare workers, Nazem said. It employs about 500 people but plans to hire a couple hundred more this year.
To help recruit clinicians in new fields, Nomad has hired Maquel Shaw as its chief marketing officer. She worked most recently as interim chief marketing officer for Overstock.com.
“It’s critical to bring the company’s transformative innovations and platform to more clinicians and more health systems,” she said in a statement. “I cannot imagine a more important cause to champion or a more exciting company to join at this crucial time for healthcare.”
Nomad also added Dr. Garheng Kong, founder and managing partner of HealthQuest, to its board of directors. 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, all of which took part in the latest $105 million fundraising. J.P. Morgan and Trinity Capital provided debt financing.
Equity represented a majority of the money, Nazem said. He declined to share the company’s revenue, profit or valuation. In a press release, the company said its revenue has grown seven-fold and that it is profitable.
Nazem does not expect demand for skilled professionals to drop off. He cited an aging population that will need more care, a backlog of care stemming from the pandemic and a desire among healthcare workers for more flexibility.
“In the face of those driving factors, it is clear that the traditional healthcare staffing model is broken, and there needs to be a 21st-century solution to support the current and future staffing market as it’s clear the staffing crisis will endure post-pandemic,” he wrote. “We believe that
Nomad is that solution.”
