Healthcare payments company Waystar on Friday became the first digital health and healthcare technology-focused company to go public since 2022.
The response was tepid. On the first day of trading, shares closed at $20.70 a share, down 3.72% from the $21.50 per share offering price. Still, the 45 million shares in its initial public offering meant Waystar raised raised $967.5 million.
Read more: Waystar raises $968M in IPO
The company will attempt to avoid the struggles faced by other publicly held digital and health technology companies. The last digital health company to go public, in August 2022, was Akili, which recently announced plans to merge with Virtual Therapeutics.
Waystar CEO Matthew Hawkins said the company, which processes 5 billion insurance transactions per year on its software platform, will use the funds generated from the IPO to repay debt and more deeply integrate artificial intelligence in its workflows. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Why go public now?
The decision to become a public company helps us in three ways. The first is it gives us awareness and visibility. We have market-leading client satisfaction scores and net promoter scores, and we want to be known. Being publicly traded gives us that awareness. Second, it gives us credibility. We have long, durable relationships with clients. Governing ourselves as a public company adds to that credibility and trust-based relationship that we have with our clients. And third, it improves our capital structure by delevering our business and focusing our investments on innovation, growth and market-leading experiences for our clients and the team members.
Where do you think you fit in the market?
We’d like to think that we're a unique company, because we're at the crossroads of technology, payments and also healthcare. We are a software company purpose-built to simplify healthcare payments. I think there's acknowledgement in the market that this is unique. There are stories resonating with investors, and we hope that we can help open the market and be a trusted, good and durable public company.
What’s your reaction to the stock market’s response Friday?
We're creating a business that we're very, very excited about. You will see that we'll continue to deliver value to our clients. As far as our financial profile, we are targeting consistent, low double-digit revenue growth, providing visibility to our revenue and we will invest. I think that message will resonate in the market, and that's the type of company that we're building.
Why did you decide to price this IPO near the midpoint of the range?
We met with many terrific and smart investors in our roadshow. I would characterize those conversations as being really productive and invigorating. We had the chance to tell the Waystar story. We felt good to launch at the midpoint, and we believe that we'll build value over time.
