WCAS Commits $300M to New Value-Based Care Platform ‘Valtruis’

One of the most active private equity firms in the senior care space is launching a new portfolio company dedicated to value-based care.

Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (WCAS) announced the formation of Valtruis on Tuesday, along with an initial capital commitment of $300 million.

Spearheaded by a founding leadership team that includes managing partners Anna Haghgooie, Tracy Bahl and Karey Witty, the new investment group will help identify, support and grow companies seeking to “realign and transform U.S. health care.”

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“We’re seeing much more innovation in health care,” Witty, a value-based care veteran that most recently served as COO of Envision Healthcare, told Home Health Care News. “In fact, there’s more innovation happening now than we’ve ever seen. Entrepreneurs from all backgrounds are focused on bringing technology, data and consumerism into focus, with the ultimate hope of finding a better way.”

Envision Healthcare is a provider of physician and advanced practice services to U.S. health care facilities.

Prior to Envision, Witty was the CEO of Corizon Health and the CFO of naviHealth, a value-based care company focused on the post-acute care sector and a former WCAS portfolio company. He has also held the CFO roles at both HealthSpring and Centene Corp. (NYSE: CNC).

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“It was clear when we launched naviHealth that acute care facilities needed help directing patient care to the next site of care,” Witty said. “That’s critical, in terms of both improved outcomes for patients as well as for the health system more generally.”

Founded in 1979, WCAS is a U.S. private equity firm focused on two target industries: technology and health care. Just a few of its past and current investments related to home-based care include InnovAge (Nasdaq: INNV) and Kindred at Home, the latter of which will soon be 100% owned by Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM).

WCAS has raised and managed funds totaling over $27 billion of committed capital, making it the perfect parent organization for Valtruis in its quest to accelerate the shift toward value-based care, Witty explained. WCAS has invested in at least 90 health care companies overall.

“CMS is a big supporter of value-based care and has launched several pilots targeting that area. But not all of the pilots have, in fact, reduced costs to the system,” he said. “It’s our goal to invest in and support innovative, disruptive companies that challenge the status quo by transforming costs, quality, access and the patient experience for the betterment of all constituents.”

Valtruis has already identified “select verticals” within the health care continuum that it will focus on. Witty said he could not list those specific areas, but mentioned that the Valtruis leadership team was eager to explore home-based care opportunities.

“We’re very excited about the possibility of increasing access to care in the home,” he told HHCN. “There are many models reaching critical mass relative to this very effort.”

Some examples, he said, include hospital-at-home models, in-home primary care, community-based palliative care and more.

As of July 27, there were 68 systems and 147 hospitals in 32 states participating in the hospital-at-home waiver program created by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) last November in response to the COVID-19 emergency.

“We definitely hope we’re fortunate enough to find innovative companies that are part of this wave toward the home,” Witty said.

With Tuesday’s public launch, Valtruis hopes to ramp up its investment search and find prospective partners in the not-too-distant future.

“Certainly, I would hope that we are able to deploy a significant amount of our capital within the first 12 months,” Witty said. “Once we put our money to work, then we can really get busy on helping these companies evolve their business models and improve their patient experiences. That’s the endgame for us.”

While there are other investment groups focused on value-based care, Witty believes Valtruis has an edge due to its leaders’ diverse experiences.

Bahl most recently served as president and CEO of OneOncology, a network of leading community oncology practices across the U.S. Meanwhile, Haghgooie most recently served as managing director of the Blue Venture Fund and Sandbox Industries.

“We believe Valtruis is well positioned to leverage WCAS’s longstanding relationships and history of building market-leading health care businesses alongside tremendous operating talent and expertise to deliver a differentiated resource to emerging companies looking to accelerate the adoption of value-based care,” David Caluori, general partner at WCAS, said in a statement.

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