Happy Tuesday!
Healthcare and technology have witnessed the most PE investment in recent months, and today we’ve got news from both sides. To start, Kinderhook is seeking a buyer for Avita, the country’s largest independent, covered-entity pharmacy service, sources told PE Hub.
Centerview Partners is providing sell-side financial advice on the process, which is entering its second round, sources said. Final bids are expected in mid-May.
Avita, based in Plano, Texas, provides integrated on-site and central-fill pharmacy services tailored to underserved communities and patients with complex conditions. It serves more than 100,000 patients through over 250 covered-entity relationships at 58 pharmacies nationwide.
Perhaps contributing to buyers’ interest, Avita appears to be one of few scale opportunities to invest behind the 340B market. Under a 340B program, eligible hospitals and providers offer care to low-income patients by obtaining prescription drugs from manufacturers at discounted prices. In other words, the 340B program is crucial for many rural hospitals and health systems.
On to tech: Marking its third cybersecurity-focused investment of the year, Advent International has led a $35 million funding round into HYPR, a passwordless authenticator.
The investment comes on the heels of two Series B rounds that Advent led last month – a $130 million investment into cloud infra security startup Wiz, and a $30 million investment into a cyber threat sharing platform called Cyware.
Advent first engaged with HYPR earlier this year, entering later on in the fundraising process. “We were several weeks into the fundraising and paused everything to engage with them,” said George Avetisov, HYPR’s co-founder and chief executive officer, clarifying that the company had already narrowed down the list of investors.
For HYPR, the impetus was Advent’s cybersecurity and identity theft domain knowledge – a sector in which Advent made waves last year. The firm along with Crosspoint Capital purchased cybersecurity company Forescout Technologies in a take-private deal fraught with uncertainties. The valuation was ultimately negotiated down to a $1.4 billion, from $1.9 billion after a legal battle.
Based on the recent news cycle, PE players seem to be increasingly leading VC rounds in U.S. companies. The trend, as rightly noted by Crunchbase, picked up pace last quarter when late-stage funding and technology growth grew at 122 percent year-over-year.
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