perspectives

Payer Compass is Acquired by Zelis

Spectrum Equity is excited to announce the sale of Payer Compass, a leading provider of healthcare reimbursement technology and price transparency solutions, to Zelis. Greg Everett, the founder and CEO of Payer Compass, and his team are passionate about lowering costs and improving price transparency in healthcare. We’re delighted that they are joining forces with a company that shares their vision of creating a better financial experience for healthcare payers and providers while improving patient outcomes.

Working with Bootstrapped Founders on Strategic Growth Initiatives

Payer Compass is a great example of Spectrum’s approach to partnering with thoughtful entrepreneurs who have built powerful bootstrapped businesses they want to scale strategically. Like other similar founders we’ve partnered with, such as Jason Krantz (Definitive Healthcare), Jack Li (Datassential), Satish Natarajan (DispatchTrack), and Sanjeev Singh (Zenwork), Greg sought out an experienced partner who could help advance his business and achieve his growth ambitions.

Greg spent several decades in healthcare reimbursement and founded Payer Compass to solve two of the most challenging problems in healthcare today: spiraling costs and lack of price transparency. When Spectrum joined forces with him in 2018, he had built Payer Compass into a profitable company that was pricing and analyzing 25 million claims annually.

Together, we grew his team and filled key roles, including a CFO and CRO. We also invested in product strategy and development resources. With our co-investor, Health Enterprise Partners, we recruited healthcare technology veteran Doug Williams to the Payer Compass board to help the company execute on its growth plans and deliver innovative products to the market.

Partnering with Companies Across the Rule of 40 Continuum

We often talk about the “Rule of 40” at Spectrum – the principle that a company’s combined growth rate and profit margin should target or exceed 40%. We partner with companies across the Rule of 40 continuum – some have more growth vs. profitability, others are highly profitable but with more measured growth, and others, like Payer Compass, have a fairly even mix of both. Payer Compass’ highly scalable software platform enabled it to grow rapidly while maintaining attractive profitability margins. Over the last four years, the company increased its transaction volumes by 4x while only increasing headcount by 50%.

Transforming the Way People Access and Pay for Healthcare

At Spectrum, we have been fortunate to work with great founders and companies that are transforming the way people access and pay for healthcare, from Payer Compass and GoodRx to Everlywell and Presence. We’re more excited than ever about the power of technology and data to revolutionize healthcare and are grateful to have had the opportunity to partner with founders like Greg who are committed to improving the healthcare system. We’re thrilled Payer Compass found such a great home in Zelis and wish the combined team the best of luck in the next stage of growth.

For more information on the sale, please read the press release.

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