Private equity firm Ascend Partners closes $570M healthcare–focused fund

Healthcare–focused private equity firm Ascend Partners has closed its inaugural fund with $570 million in capital, it announced Thursday.

Ascend Capital Partners Fund I will focus its investments on primary care, multispecialty and physician groups; healthcare IT businesses; and value-based care companies in the New York region. It plans to target community-based companies that can manage complex Medicare and Medicaid patient populations, according to a release.

A spokesman said Ascend plans to make 10 to 12 investments with its inaugural fund, targeting opportunities to firms with revenues of $50 million to $500 million. It will make both controlled-stake and minority investments.

Ascend's management-services organization, CareAbout, will support portfolio companies in such areas as quality improvement, multisite practice management, data analytics, value-based care delivery and population health management. CareAbout has 19 employees.

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Partners in the fund, which was oversubscribed and hit its hard cap, included public and private pension funds, foundations, financial institutions and family offices.

"We have the opportunity to improve patient lives and overcome the fragmentation of care by using our integrated, operational strategy to build a sustainable, quality-focused healthcare delivery model," Ascend Partners co-founder Dr. Richard Park said in a statement.

Park, who was the founder and former CEO of urgent care network CityMD, co-founded Ascend Partners in 2019 with In Seon Hwang, former global head of health care at Warburg Pincus, which acquired CityMD in 2017.

Ascend Partners is based in Midtown East and has eight employees. Its portfolio companies include Essen Health Care, a Bronx-based multispecialty health system, and Rendr, a multispecialty physician group that serves Asian American patients in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens.

This story was first published by our sister publication, Crain's New York Business.