A pair of American private equity firms have agreed to invest $300 million CAD ($240 million USD) in Ottawa-based healthtech startup Fullscript.
HGGC and Snapdragon Capital Partners have signed a definitive agreement to make a strategic growth investment in the Canadian firm, which offers a marketplace designed to power the supplements businesses of alternative health practitioners.
Fullscript offers a marketplace designed to power the supplements businesses of alternative health practitioners.
Fullscript said the HGGC and Snapdragon investment is designed to help it expand its platform “across the patient treatment lifecycle.” With the new financing, Fullscript co-founder and CEO Kyle Braatz said the company plans to make “significant investments in people, technology, partnerships and acquisitions” to accelerate its growth strategy, as it looks to become the go-to platform for integrative medicine.
Founded in 2011, Fullscript provides supplement delivery and virtual care tools for integrative medicine practitioners and their patients. Integrative medicine refers to the integration of conventional medical care with complementary and alternative therapies like nutritional supplements.
Fullscript’s software allows integrated medicine practitioners to write virtual treatment plans, dispense supplements and provide adherence tools and evidence-based resources to their patients. The company’s platform offers over 20,000 products from over 300 brands.
According to Ottawa Business Journal, the investment comes amid a period of growth for Fullscript, which has more than 500 employees and seen revenues increase from $40 million three years ago to a projected $300 million in fiscal 2021.
The $300 million deal has yet to close. A spokesperson for HGGC told BetaKit that these types of transactions typically close in 30 to 45 days, but said there is no official timeline for this deal. In response to questions about whether HGGC and Snapdragon are set to acquire a minority or a majority stake in Fullscript as part of this deal, and what the breakdown of this investment is in terms of debt to equity, they said the companies are not disclosing any further details.
HGGC is a Palo Alto, California-based middle-market private equity firm with an investment approach that involves acquiring scalable business through partnerships with management teams, founders, and sponsors. Connecticut’s Snapdragon is a growth equity and buyout investment firm focused on growth consumer categories and digital enablement, with a particular eye towards health and wellness companies.
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In 2018, Fullscript and Scottsdale, Arizona-based Natural Partners merged, becoming Natural Partners Fullscript, bringing together Natural Partners’ nutritional supplement wholesale and fulfillment network together with Fullscript’s dispensing platform. Earlier this year, the company rebranded to just Fullscript.
Fullscript previously secured $25 million in Series B financing in 2019 led by Kayne Partners, the growth equity group of Los Angeles-based Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, which focuses on enterprise software and tech-enabled business services companies. According to TechCrunch, Fullscript was bootstrapped prior to that round.
Over the past year, Fullscript has made a number of significant leadership changes. Jeff MacDonald, former vice president of product management at Mindbridge AI, joined the firm in July as chief product officer. His hire followed a series of executive moves the company made earlier this year, as Braatz shifted from president and chief revenue officer to CEO in January, replacing Fran Towey, who transitioned to chair of Fullscript’s board.
Towey served as CEO of Natural Partners since 2014, and of Natural Partners Fullscript for two years following the merger. In addition to this CEO shuffle, Fullscript promoted Christy White to chief of staff, hired Elizabeth Halkos as chief commercial officer, and named Ken Taylor as its new chief financial officer.
Feature image by Mika Baumeister via Unsplash