Ten Years of Transforming Healthcare: A Reflection

By Senator Bill Frist, MD, Co-Founder and Managing Partner

A decade ago, my colleague Bryan Cressey called me with an idea.

"I'm in Fort Worth right now," I told him. "Tracy is competing at a cutting horse show. Can we talk about this later?"

He told me no. He needed to discuss something with me now, and he was serious enough that he was willing to fly all the way to Texas to meet. I had no idea that when we sat down at a BBQ restaurant together a few hours later that we would leave with the spark of a strong conviction: that the most powerful force for change in healthcare wasn't happening in the halls of Congress or corporate boardrooms. It was happening in the hands of bold, imaginative founders willing to rethink everything.

That belief became Frist Cressey Ventures. And ten years later, I find myself filled with gratitude, pride, and genuine excitement about what comes next.

What we've built together is something I couldn't have fully envisioned in 2015, though I hoped for it. Over the past 10 years we've had:

• Forty-four investments across the full spectrum of healthcare innovation.
• Fourteen successful exits.
• Two funds ranking in the top 5% of all venture capital funds for their respective vintages.
• And now, an oversubscribed $425 million Fund IV bringing our total assets under management to nearly $1 billion.

But the numbers, as meaningful as they are, tell only part of the story.

The fuller story is in the lives touched. It's in the cancer patients who receive more compassionate, coordinated care through Thyme Care. It's in the health systems now better equipped to deploy AI responsibly and at scale through Qualified Health. It's in the 50-plus percent of Americans whose care is touched by our strategic partners. These include The Cigna Group, MedStar Health, OhioHealth and others, organizations that don't just invest alongside us, but believe in the same future we're working to build.

The fuller story is also in the FCV Collective, who gather year after year to wrestle with the thorniest problems in our system, share hard-won wisdom, and build the relationships that make durable change possible. Their commitment to systems-level thinking gives me tremendous hope.

When I reflect on these ten years, what strikes me most is how much the mission has stayed the same, even as the tools and possibilities have grown. We have always been about the patient at the center. We have always been about the founder with the audacious idea. And we have always believed that thoughtfully applied, responsibly scaled technology can help us close the gap between the healthcare we have and the healthcare every person deserves.

The emergence of AI-native healthcare models is the most exciting development I've witnessed since we opened our doors. It carries real promise. But it also demands exactly the kind of careful discernment, domain depth, and long-term perspective that FCV has spent a decade building. We are ready for this moment.

None of this happens without the people who show up every day to make it real. At FCV, we have always believed that how you build matters as much as what you build, and that belief starts with our own team. Our values of teamwork, intellectual honesty, courage, and humility are the standard we hold ourselves to in every meeting, every decision, and every relationship. Our investment team is thoughtful, passionate and relentless by nature, always hunting for the next founder with a genuine solution to a systemic problem, and they are equally determined to show up for our portfolio companies in whatever way is needed after the investment is made.

Our Partnership Development team works with equal creativity and energy, constantly imagining new ways to add value for our founders and our LPs through events, our strategic network, and through introductions that open doors that may have otherwise remained closed.

And of course, behind it all is our administrative and operations team. They run the engine that keeps everything moving smoothly and securely. They are the beating heart of our organization, keeping us empathetic and reminding us that at the end of the day, we are people trying our best to help other people.

To our founders, our limited partners, our strategic partners, and the thousands of patients who are the quiet purpose behind everything we do: thank you. You have made these ten years meaningful beyond measure.

The next ten? I believe they will be transformative beyond anything we can yet imagine. And I cannot wait to build them with you.