Bruce Broussard didn’t choose health care—but health care certainly chose him.
Broussard grew up in small-town Texas and studied accounting in undergrad. It was only by chance that, while in an early consulting job out of college, he started working on health care-related projects. It stuck: Broussard went on to become CFO, then CEO and chairman at US Oncology (acquired by McKesson in 2010). Starting in 2013, he served as the CEO and president of Humana, among the largest U.S. publicly traded benefits providers. Over the course of Broussard’s decade-long tenure, Humana’s market cap went from around $15 billion in 2013 to over $30 billion this year. I asked Broussard, since he’d know: What does it actually take to change health care?
“I’d say there’s two things in health care that I look at that create structural change,” he said. “One is the payment model—in health care, following the economics is important. The second is in technology, and the ability to evolve technology to be more proactive in care. Then, in addition, the ability to really simplify the care model and the experience inside health care.”
Broussard will now have an opportunity to double down on those ideas—from the outside. After stepping down from Humana in July, Broussard is joining health care-focused VC firm Define Ventures as a venture partner, Fortune can exclusively report.
He’s looking for companies “with the ability to really partner with other well-established organizations, and be able to do that in a way where you’re able to leverage size and scale, but at the same time, be able to leverage entrepreneurship.”
It’s a particularly change-oriented time in health care, as the AI boom is in full swing. Broussard, however, doesn’t buy the short-term hype.
“I think AI will be disruptive, but it will evolve like we’ve seen with other technologies,” he said. “I go way back to the 2000s when the Internet came in and generated a lot of hype, then fell. But look where it is today, and look at the implications it’s had on our lives. And I just feel large language models will be the same thing.”
For fully materialized AI ROI across health care, Broussard is looking five to ten years down the road. He expects change will take on many forms, and necessarily so.
“[Innovation in health care] is iterative, and iteration takes time,” he said. “It takes learning and changing.”
Broussard has more experience in startups than a first glance at his CV might suggest. Back when Lynne Chou O’Keefe, Define Ventures founder and managing partner, was at Kleiner Perkins, she and Broussard first met. They later worked together on Cohere Health, a startup that streamlines prior authorization processes. The idea for Cohere in part originated with Broussard and Humana, and the startup has since raised more than $100 million in VC backing, including from Define and Longitude Capital.
Like his journey to health care itself many decades ago, Broussard’s path to venture wasn’t planned but is somehow fitting.
Perplexing…AI search startup Perplexity made headlines yesterday more than once. The company is reportedly in talks to double its valuation to $8 billion—and because Dow Jones and the New York Post have both (almost simultaneously) sued Perplexity, alleging copyright infringement. (Disclosure: Fortune has a revenue-sharing deal with Perplexity).
Earning Stripes…Stripe has confirmed its acquisition of stablecoin startup Bridge. Read Stripe cofounder and CEO Patrick Collison’s post on X here.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
Twitter: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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Nina Ajemian curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
Correction, Oct. 22, 2024: The email version of this newsletter misstated the timeline in which Cohere Health was founded. It started after O’Keefe left Kleiner Perkins.
VENTURE DEALS
- Zip, a San Francisco-based AI-powered procurement orchestration platform, raised $190 million in Series D funding. BOND led the round and was joined by Adams Street, Alkeon, DST Global, existing investors CRV, Y Combinator, and others.
- SchooLinks, an Austin-based college and career readiness resources software platform for K-12 students, raised $80 million in Series B funding. Susquehanna Growth Equity led the round and was joined by Stephens Group, Strada, and ASA.
- Carbon Robotics, a Seattle-based AI-powered farming technology company, raised $70 million in Series D funding. BOND led the round and was joined by existing investors NVentures, Anthos Capital, Fuse Venture Capital, and others.
- Zephyr, a New York City-based home services platform for technicians, raised $60 million in funding. Elda River Capital and The Pritzker Organization led the round and were joined by Juxtapose.
- Socket, a San Francisco-based software supply chain attacks security platform, raised $40 million in Series B funding. Abstract Ventures led the round and was joined by Elad Gil, Andreessen Horowitz, and angel investors.
- Tennr, a New York City-based health care document reading model developer, raised $37 million in Series B funding. Lightspeed Ventures led the round and was joined by existing investors a16z and Foundation Capital.
- Stream.Security, a Tel Aviv-based real-time cloud security solutions provider, raised $30 million in Series B funding. U.S. Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Citi Ventures and existing investors Energy Impact Partners, Cervin Ventures, TLV Partners, and Glilot Capital Partners VC.
- Oriole Networks, a London-based LLM training technology developer, raised $22 million in Series A funding. Plural led the round and was joined by existing investors UCL Technology Fund, XTX Ventures, Clean Growth Fund, and Dorilton Ventures.
- Conflux Technology, a Waurn Ponds, Australia-based heat transfer and additive manufacturing company, raised $11 million in Series B funding. Breakthrough Victoria led the round and was joined by M Ventures and Acorn Capital.
- Counsel Health, a Boston-based physician-led AI health care platform, raised $11 million in seed funding. a16z Bio + Health led the round and was joined by Asymmetric Capital Partners, Floodgate Fund, Pear VC, and others.
- Rollstack, a New York City-based slide decks and document reporting automation company, raised $11 million in Series A funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by existing investor Y Combinator.
- Authologic, a Warsaw-based digital identity verification platform, raised $8.2 million in Series A funding. OpenOcean led the round and was joined by YCombinator, Peak Capital, and SMOK VC.
- Akua, a Bogotá-based payment processing platform, raised $4.3 million in seed funding. Propel led the round and was joined by Plug and Play, HTwenty, RallyCap, Flourish Ventures, and IC Ventures.
- Qpoint, a San Francisco-based external service dependencies and traffic flows visibility and control platform, raised $4 million in pre-seed funding. Mango Capital led the round and was joined by Preface Ventures, Scribble Ventures, and Bloomberg Beta.
- With Nothing Underneath, a London-based womenswear brand, raised £2.5 million ($3.3 million) in funding. Pembroke VCT led the round and was joined by JamJar Investments.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Sophos, backed by Thoma Bravo, agreed to acquire Secureworks, an Atlanta-based cybersecurity platform, for approximately $859 million in cash.
- Initial Group, backed by TPG, acquired Grandview, a Los Angeles-based literary management firm that will be combined with Untitled Entertainment. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Medbridge, backed by Brentwood Associates and LLR Partners, acquired Rehab Boost, a Miami-based motion capture and movement-based AI company now called Medbridge Motion Capture. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Sverica Capital Management acquired a majority investment in Electronic Source Company, a Van Nuys, Calif.-based electronic manufacturing services company for the aerospace and defense and space markets. Financial terms were not disclosed.
OTHER
- Acacia Research Corporation acquired Deflecto Acquisition, an Indianapolis-based commercial transportation, HVAC, and office markets products manufacturer, for $103.7 million.
- Elixirr acquired Hypothesis, a Los Angeles-based insights and strategy firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Hightower Holding agreed to acquire a majority stake in NEPC, a Boston-based investment consulting firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IPOS
- Septerna, a San Francisco-based GPCRs-focused biotech company, plans to raise $185.3 million in an offering of 10.9 million shares priced between $15 and $17 on the Nasdaq. The company posted $1 million in revenue for the year ending June 30, 2024. Third Rock Ventures, RA Capital, Samsara BioCapital, Invus Public Equities, Deep Track Capital, Goldman, and Biotechnology Value Fund back the company.
FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS
- L2 Point Management, a San Francisco-based investment firm, raised $312 million for its first fund focused on the technology, technology-enabled, consumer, health care, and media sectors.
