Irving-based ShiftKey—whose proprietary tech directly connects healthcare professionals with facilities that have immediate shift vacancies—just became North Texas’ newest double unicorn.
The fast-growing startup announced today that it has closed a funding round sponsored by majority investor Lorient Capital, valuing the company in excess of $2 billion.
ShiftKey raised $300 million in the funding round, CEO Tom Ellis exclusively told Axios.
Lorient’s investment was completed through “a continuation vehicle” led by the Ares Management Secondaries funds and Pantheon, with additional investors including Clearlake Capital and Health Velocity Capital.
Aiming to disrupt how healthcare shifts get filled
Founded in 2016, ShiftKey offers a scheduling and credential management platform that aims to disrupt the way healthcare facilities typically find professionals to fill available shifts.
“Nurses continue to choose to work on their own terms,” Tom Ellis, founder and CEO of ShiftKey, said in a statement. “Our vision is to empower nurses and other licensed professionals through the combination of our core marketplace product along with additional technology and tools such as scheduling, payments, education, and credentialing. We’re appreciative for the support of our investors who share in this objective.”
Posting on LinkedIn earlier today, Ellis added, “What a way to kick off 2023! Growth—not for the sake of growth, but IMPACT.”
Software is used by “hundreds of thousands” across over 10K facilities
ShiftKey’s software now enables work for hundreds of thousands of licensed professionals across over 10,000 healthcare facilities nationwide, the company said.
The company’s mobile app allows healthcare workers to browse, bid on, and work nearby “PRN shifts” to cover for absent employees. By offering healthcare workers the opportunity to work as much or as little as they choose—and putting the power back into their hands—ShiftKey says it’s bringing more licensed professionals back into the workforce, helping to solve a major crisis in healthcare.
“Work when you want and where you like,” ShiftKey tells healthcare workers on its website, which today said that 57,449,503 working hours have been scheduled using the company’s platform.
CEO Ellis was named a 2022 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year
ShiftKey’s meteoric growth gained it a lot of recognition in 2022. In June, CEO Tom Ellis was was one of the 11 winners of the EY Entrepreneurs of the Year Central Plains Award.
Morgan Watson, EY’s Central Plains program director, said at the Omni Dallas awards event that Ellis and the other winners had “shown us that ambition, courage, ingenuity, and empathy are key to driving change.
ShiftKey ranked No. 1 on the 2022 SMU Cox ‘Dallas 100’ list
(L to R) Thompson Coburn Partners Sartouk Moussavi and Michael Parks congratulate ShiftKey President and CEO Tom Ellis at the Dallas 100 gala in November. [Photo: SMU Cox]
In another sign of its growing success, ShiftKey was ranked No. 1 in the annual SMU Cox Dallas 100 ranking for 2022. The Dallas 100 recognizes the region’s fastest-growing entrepreneurial companies.
CEO Ellis is shown above at right, being congratulated at the Dallas 100 gala in November.
Lorient Capital partner: ‘ShiftKey is changing the future of work”
David Berman, managing partner of Lorient Capital, sees great things in ShiftKey’s future, as well in how it can transform work in healthcare.
“ShiftKey is changing the future of work by empowering licensed professionals to have the freedom and flexibility to choose when, where, and how they want to work,” Berman said in the statement. “We’re excited to realign our investor base around ShiftKey’s long-term strategy to become the preeminent technology platform powering the future of licensed work.”
Goldman Sachs and Aviditi Advisors acted as advisors and placement agents to Lorient Capital in the funding round. McDermott Will & Emery and Gibson Dunn were legal advisors.
Get on the list.
Dallas Innovates, every day.
Sign up to keep your eye on what’s new and next in Dallas-Fort Worth, every day.
R E A D N E X T
-
Founded in 2019 by Mark Bunting, Grata is a first-of-its-kind online platform for consumers to convey recognition directly to a brand's frontline employees in real-time. The company said that investors who have joined to support the success of Grata include Capital Factory, Clutch, Hall Group, and Perot Jain. The startup has assembled a team of entrepreneurial veterans and industry experts including Patrick Brandt, Wesley Bryan, Allison Swope, and John Rabara.
-
The UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth has received a $2 million grant from Tarrant County to help emerging tech startups successfully apply for federal Small Business Innovation Research funding. "It’s about creating entrepreneurial excellence in Tarrant County,” says Tarrant County Commissioner Roy Brooks. “This puts us at the forefront of innovation in bringing tech industries to Tarrant County as an economic development tool.”
-
Most anyone who has been commuting to work over the past two years has likely noticed a decrease in traffic. Brookings Institution noted that metro traffic congestion was cut in half after COVID-19 hit in 2020, attributing it largely to employees working virtually from home, and more flexible work schedules (though government stay-at-home orders figured prominently as well). The think tank has also reported that 18 million households in rural and urban America are without broadband internet service, which allows streaming of data for smart devices. Considering those factors, the DFW region’s metropolitan planning organization recently informally adopted the policy…
-
Irving-based Biote Corp. an innovator in preventive healthcare through the delivery of personalized hormone therapy, announced Debby Morris has been appointed to its board of directors, bringing more than three decades of experience in directing financial operations and strategy to support high-growth companies. Biote went public in May through a SPAC deal. Morris served as the executive vice president and chief financial officer of Apria Inc. from March 2013 through October. Before that, she was chief financial officer-Americas for Sitel Worldwide Corp. from February 2010 to February 2013. “Debby is an accomplished executive whose deep financial and business expertise—spanning accounting…
-
Reveles' new DCT management platform broadens access to clinical trials by enabling patients to participate—without leaving their homes. The technology includes enabling eConsent from existing and potential patients; online video and audio between patients and healthcare providers; direct data collection including real-time data, compliance, and status view featuring eSource, eDiaries, devices, wearables, questionnaires, and surveys; and telemedicine tools.
