A Dallas-based startup applying technology tools to both the supply and demand sides of healthcare labor has raised $11.5 million from a three-pronged investment group.
Leading the funding for Prolucent Health are SpringTide Ventures and Health Velocity Capital, which has among its backers a number of large health systems. They were joined by UnityPoint Health Ventures, the investment arm of the 20-hospital system that serves more than 2.3 million people in Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin.
Prolucent, which was launched in the summer of 2020, already works with more than 30,000 healthcare employers around the country and has about 500,000 clinicians registered on its AI-driven Liquid Compass platform. Co-founder and CEO Bruce Springer said he expects to add another 1 million users in 2022 as Prolucent expands its digital marketing efforts and builds out its network of nursing school partnerships, which today comprises more than 300 institutions.
Springer said Prolucent gives employers a better view at data on their labor use and its costs and has a track record of generating increases of 300 percent to 500 percent over standard tools in the number of qualified applicants. During a time when the turnover rate among staff nurses tops 20 percent – up from an already painful 16 percent in 2019 – and the cost of travel nurses is climbing, those numbers sound good to employers such as UnityPoint.
“This will take us through next year and into 2023,” Springer said about the money Prolucent has raised. “We can decide then if we should go back to the market or stay on the pace we’re on.”
Prolucent today employs about 40 full-time and flex staffers – split relatively evenly between Dallas and remote locations – and Springer said he is looking to grow that number by 45 in 2022.
“Over the last six months, we at Health Velocity Capital have heard from most of our strategic health system investors that labor management is one of their key priorities,” Grant Blevins, a principal with Health Velocity Capital, said in a statement. “Prolucent Health has developed a comprehensive solution that healthcare HR and clinical hiring managers have sought out in the market.”
Word of Prolucent’s raise comes just days after nurse staffing company connectRN said it has raised $76 million from a group of firms that includes home health and hospice care giant Amedisys. Tech-based connectRN is on pace to triple its revenues this year and has raised $100 million since its 2014 founding.
