A two-year-old Nashville startup is expanding with a nine-figure funding round.
Value-based health care firm Main Street Health has closed a $315 million round of funding, according to a company news release, led by Oak HC/FT.
Other investors in the round include the nation’s five largest Medicare Advantage plans (UnitedHealthcare, Humana, Elevance, CVS Health and Centene), Echo Health Ventures and LRVHealth. Several of the company’s provider partners also participated in the round.
Main Street was founded in September 2021 by health care entrepreneur Brad Smith — his first startup out of Russell Street Ventures. Main Street started with the help of a $26.4 million investment from Smith, Frist-Cressey Ventures, Oak HC/FT and other health care entrepreneurs.
With the latest round of funding, Main Street announced its expansion into 26 states. The company currently operates in 18 states and plans to add eight states next year.
Main Street partners with rural primary care clinics to provide health care services to seniors. The company has a proprietary care management platform that integrates with a doctor’s electronic medical record. Patients are helped by “health navigators,” who work inside the startup’s partner clinics to coordinate care.
“Across the country, we have seen that by partnering with local physicians and their teams to deliver high-touch, value-based care, we can improve the overall quality, cost, and experience of healthcare in rural America,” said Smith, chairman and CEO of Main Street, in the release.
Main Street has grown quickly since its founding, partnering with more than 900 clinics. The company’s pre-money valuation for the round was $1.2 billion, according to a company spokesperson.
That means Main Street has entered “unicorn” territory, a buzzy Silicon Valley term for startups with a ten-digit-plus valuation. That number is notable for Nashville’s startup community, even for a business born out of the city’s massive health care industry.
“In my 30 years of investing, I have never seen a company successfully scale this quickly with outcomes this strong,” Annie Lamont, managing partner at Oak HC/FT, said in the release. “I think this speaks to the opportunity that exists to improve healthcare across rural America as well as the operational experience of the Main Street team.”
What’s even more notable: it’s Smith’s second startup to break that ten-figure valuation in the past two years. In 2020, Smith was part of the group that launched long-term support company CareBridge, which vaulted to a $1 billion valuation last year. The company ranked No 1. on this year’s Inc. 5000 fastest-growing companies list.
Smith — former Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation — and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist co-founded Aspire Health in 2013, selling it to insurance company Anthem Inc. (now Elevance Health) in 2018. Frist, Smith and other former Aspire executives were involved in the creation of both Main Street Health and CareBridge.
