European private equity firm Nordic Capital this week acquired Arcadia, a Boston-based health data platform. The deal made Nordic a majority owner of Arcadia, marking the exit of previous investor Peloton stock.
Arcadia’s platform includes AI-powered tools designed to help payers and providers effectively adopt value-based care and improve patient experience and outcomes.
The latest funding raised by the company was in 2023, when it received $125 million in funding from Vista Credit Partners. Just last year, Arcadia merged a massive expansion with health analytics company Carejourney, which helped participate in value-based care contracts.
Arcadia CEO Michael Meucci pointed out that Arcadia’s new deal is an exciting time in the digital health world. He noted that the government is investing in better healthcare technology infrastructure, payers and providers are collaborating, collaborating, and working on data sharing programs, and more stakeholders are collaborating than ever before.
Meucci said the company was not actively raising funds when Nordic submitted the deal to Arcadia, but it has been preparing for such growth opportunities.
“The Nordic view is that the only way to solve the cost of health care in the United States is to adopt and democratize value-based care. So now is the right time for us, and we say, ‘Let’s link the weapons together and connect them.’ They’re on my court: “We can pour rocket fuel on it.” “And I already thought we were moving very fast, so I wouldn’t refuse it,” he said.
Meucci notes that Nordic is supporting Arcadia’s current leadership and growth strategy rather than trying to run the company directly. Nordic will contribute capital and expertise from its network, but the existing Arcadia team will retain day-to-day execution.
In Meucci’s eyes, the deal fits a broader trend – strategic healthcare investments are increasingly focusing on interoperability, AI and payment reforms.
He also believes the deal is a validation moment for value-based care technology, as he believes Nordic’s entry into value-based care technology will signal the market.
“I think we’re seeing a new class of deals. It’s not like in 2021, but there’s a lot of health care trading activity. Over the past six months, you’ve done the whole thing. I think it’s starting with surveillance,” Meucci said. “I think there are six to seven fairly large transactions that illustrate the themes of digitalization and data exchange and payment model transformation and scale adoption of AI.”
For example, New Mountain Capital acquired Machineify in January and fuses it with other AI-powered payment integrity services to create a $5 billion company focused on healthcare billing accuracy. Just last week, Healthcare AI startup Abridge ended a $300 million E-financing round — just four months after ending the $250 million Series D match.
Going forward, Meucci hopes to shift value-based care from side initiatives to core operating principles for providers and payers, and he believes Arcadia’s platform can help them do so.
He added that the company is investing heavily in AI tools including large language model-driven dialogue analytics to help providers and payers work more effectively in value-based care arrangements. He also noted that Nordic investments will allow Arcadia to continue building new tools and selectively acquire companies that enhance its products.
Nordic and Arcadia did not disclose financial terms of the deal and are expected to end in the second half of this year.
Photo: Natee Meepian, Getty Images
