According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, there will be a shortage of 100,000 doctors by 2030 in the US. Vandberbilt University projects that in 2025 the nursing shortage in the US will be double that of any shortage since the advent of Medicare and Medicaid. As a result, anything that can reduce the time it takes for clinicians to see patients will thrive. This is where Nomad Health comes in. It’s an online marketplace for clinical jobs so that doctors and nurses can connect directly with healthcare facilities for employment opportunities. Eliminating the recruiters that often serve as a bottleneck, the platform provides transparency, simplicity, and even handles the credentialing and malpractice administrative tasks.
Today AlleyWatch sits down with cofounder and CEO Dr. Alexi Nazem to learn more about the company, its future plans, and its latest funding round which brings the total capital raised to $16M.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised $12M in Series B financing. The round was led by Polaris Partners. The Series B includes additional investment from existing investors First Round Capital, RRE Ventures, and .406 Ventures.
Tell us about your product or service. Nomad Health has built the first online marketplace where clinicians and medical employers can directly connect for freelance healthcare jobs, including locum tenens, travel nursing, and telehealth.
What inspired you to start the company?
As a doctor myself, I’ve suffered through too many archaic recruitment and onboarding processes. Rather than helping to tackle clinician shortages and help get physicians to patient bedsides, these processes only made everything slower. So we built Nomad. It’s 21st century recruiting that gives time and money back to clinicians and medical institutions so they can rededicate themselves to delivering outstanding patient care.
How is it different?
Nomad is the first marketplace to eliminate third-party recruitment brokers from the staffing process, and directly connect doctors and nurses with the medical institutions that hire them. The simple, cloud-based platform drives substantial cost savings, increases hiring quality, and speeds up hiring for both employers and clinicians
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
Nomad Health is a healthcare technology platform built to dramatically improve the efficiency of the $15 billion temporary healthcare staffing industry.
What’s your business model?
Nomad is paid by the hospitals and clinics for every hire. By removing recruitment brokers, and by digitally processing steps like applications, credentialing, payments, and malpractice insurance, Nomad can offer higher pay rates to clinicians, while still saving medical employers up to 40% per hire.
What has it been like cofounding the company with Kevin Ryan?
As someone who has founded a stable of successful technology startups (MongoDB, Business Insider, Zola and Gilt Groupe), Kevin has been invaluable to Nomad as both a cofounder and the Chairman of the Board.
What was the funding process like?
Our process was clean and effective. Naturally it’s always difficult to raise millions of dollars, but our team rose to the challenge with a convincing story and strong fundamentals to back it up.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Balancing investor expectations of rapid technology adoption against the reality of healthcare’s complexity
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
You’d have to ask them to be sure! But I believe that a few key factors were:
1) an experience and knowledgeable leadership team
2) traction and market validation of the Nomad product
3) very attractive market dynamics (size, growth, competitive landscape)
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Nomad Health will use the proceeds from this Series B raise to fortify the technology that drives the marketplace, expand into more states on its way to being nationwide, and hire more employees to further the company’s vision of digitizing healthcare human resources.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Hire great people. A good team is the key to your company’s success. And New York companies are in a fantastic position. There is a ton of great talent in the city. You can hire from one of the finest and most diverse pools of talent in the country, if not the world, so you should be able to find exactly who you’re looking for.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Our goal has always been to bring this technology to bear across the country, and with this new infusion of capital, we can expand to all 50 states and hire new staff to propel our growth.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
To be completely honest, my mother’s kitchen on the east side in Manhattan. Incredibly delicious food; great service!