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Startup Spotlight: Meet Outcome Health, the $5 Billion Healthcare Tech Unicorn

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It has become well known that health care dominates not only U.S. news, but the country’s spending dollars as well. Therefore it makes sense that a startup in the all-important, and seemingly all-consuming sector, could be poised to become the next big “unicorn” company.

Chicago-based Outcome Health is ready to capitalize on the massive health care market, while also trying to help patients and physicians. The company now joins the ranks of an exclusive club of private firms, including Airbnb, WeWork and Uber, which are valued at over $1 billion.

Outcome Health is not only the newest unicorn company, having earned the honor just last week, but it is also already valued in the top 30 on the list of roughly 200 non-public companies worth $1 billion.

Now let’s take a look at this health care sector fledgling with the potential to soar.

Company History

CEO Rishi Shah and President Shradha Agarwal founded ContextMedia in 2006 while the two were at Northwestern University. The company began to sell its video monitor services to physicians and hospitals without any outside investment.

Over the next decade, the company grew and big-time investors noticed, but Shah and Agarwal passed up offers in order to scale organically and retain ownership. In January, the company changed its name to Outcome Health as it slowly pushed towards its first major round of funding.

According to Crain's, the company took in more than $130 million in revenue last year and posted an operating profit margin of roughly 40%. Outcome Health doubled its revenue in each of the last two years, and it also grew with its acquisition of AccentHealth last November.

About Outcome

Today, Outcome Health helps both patients and doctors by providing touch screen monitors to hospitals and health care offices around the country. The company installs large, interactive video boards that allow physicians to better explain a patient’s current health care needs or problems through the use of video, graphics and interactive visual aids.

Outcome Health also utilizes specialized software to assist physicians and patients for everything from treatment decisions to medical warning signs.

Outcome tries to maximize how both doctors and patients spend their time, which helps unclog those stereotypically crowded waiting rooms. According to one of the company’s online testimonials, Dr. Neil Baum, a New Orleans-based urologist, cut the time it takes him to explain a common urological procedure from 12 minutes to less than five minutes through the use of Outcome Health’s Digital Anatomy Board.

Outcome Health often provides its services to medical providers for free. The company makes most of its money from insurance providers, drug makers, health care marketers and pharmaceutical companies.

Investors

Outcome Health announced on May 31 that it received $500 million in its first-ever round of funding, valuing the company at a staggering $5 billion. Groupon (GRPN) was the last company to raise that much money in a single round of investing, and that was in the company’s fifth round back in 2011.

The health care company now boasts a few major players in the investing world, including Goldman Sachs (GS - Free Report) , Pritzker Group Venture Capital and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL - Free Report) equity investment fund CapitalG. On top of those big-time names, a few strategic health and health care companies also got in on the action.

"Outcome Health and its investors share a commitment to activate the best health outcome possible for every person in the world,” Shah said in a statement. “We believe achieving this at scale will require building a ubiquitous network that brings together all sides of healthcare to support patients and healthcare providers whenever, wherever and however they make critical healthcare decisions."

Future

Outcome Health’s technology is currently used by nearly 230,000 health care professionals, which amounted to a total of 585 million patient visits last year. The company expects that its first-ever investments will help it reach 70% of all U.S. physician practices by 2020, up from 20% today.

The company currently employs 500 people, and the $5 billion valuation certainly won’t hurt Outcome Health’s ability to attract top talent. Outcome hopes to expand its business into areas such as clinical trials, pharmacies, international markets and more.

Outcome Health doesn’t seem to be ready to rush into an IPO just yet, but according to the Chicago Tribune, a company spokesman said it is considering an IPO in the coming years.

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