Atlanta software startup Florence Healthcare raised an $80 million Series C round and plans to double its team as it expands its network.
The round was led by New York-based Insight Partners, a global venture capital firm with bets on Atlanta unicorns OneTrust and SalesLoft. Existing investors Fulcrum Equity Partners, Bee Partners and Flashpoint also participated. The startup has $90 million in total investments.
Florence automates the paperwork that physicians must do when conducting clinical research on drugs and medical treatments, which speeds up the trials, CEO and co-founder Ryan Jones said.
The software’s usage tripled in 2020, Jones said, in part because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pharmaceutical companies needed a way to connect with the physicians doing the clinical trials on specific drugs, so they turned to Florence. Now, the software also acts as a communication tool between researchers and drug companies, which sparked a massive growth spurt for the company.
"All of the sudden we went from this small point solution that was helping an unloved corner of clinical research to being an important part of the fabric of how new drugs get to market,” Jones said.
Quickly upgrading the software to allow it to create a network between companies and researchers created many long days for Florence employees, Jones said. But the mission behind their work kept them going.
“Every time we activated a new research site, the world got a little bit closer to ending the pandemic,” Jones said.
Jones said about half the studies they support are for cancer treatments. Pfizer used the software during Covid-19 vaccine trials. Florence reaches about 35,000 researchers in 34 countries.
Florence earned the Technology Association of Georgia’s Biggest Impact Company in Georgia award, a recognition that the company says shows the importance of their work.
Florence’s growth demonstrates how Atlanta’s identities as both a technology and public health hub spur innovation. Jones and his co-founders, Chief Technology Officer Andres Garcia and former Emory physician Dr. Michael Kassin, created Florence in 2014 from a Georgia Tech program. They wanted to solve the issue of physicians spending more time dealing with administration work than with their patients or research.
Business-to-business software startups have long been the bread and butter of the city’s tech ecosystem, and the city’s network of legacy healthcare systems breed startups focused on making processes in the medical field more efficient.
By the end of the year, Jones plans to have 200 employees, double the current team, and see more of the medicines Florence supported going to market. The Florence office is in the Bank of America Plaza in downtown Atlanta, and Jones said he plans to concentrate expansion efforts in the city.
