Rubicon Founders (Nashville, TN)
Haven't seen much on them here but does anyone have any insights on the fund (i.e. comp / culture / WLB).
Seems like they're really focused on VBC but see a few portcos that aren't VBC related. Would be great for any incremental color here.
Bump
Sweatshop that pays undermarket.
Sorry if dumb qusetion but what's defined as 'undermarket'?
Also in terms of sweatiness, as in working identical hours to banking?
Lmao. Stop burdening people, this is just not true.
I interviewed with them last year.. spoke with an ASO and VP. They seemed like pretty nice people actually. It COULD be a sweatshop. However, they do not underpay. The recruiter told me early on what total comp was, and I was shocked. Healthy base + bonus + lev co-invest
Wait you ask recruiters for comp ? Agree I got the sense they were in the neighborhood of 300k but damn
True^
Lmao, 'VBC.' All these healthcare buyside firms in Nashville love milking that term. That being said, well known local firm but don't know much about their performance. They have a few PPMs (physician practice management) and I highly doubt those have been doing well as of late.
So one thing to keep in mind with them is that their founder is obviously a former admin guy , so you’re going to get pretty biased opinions depending on what people think about the admin— also, of course, value based healthcare can be controversial so if you don’t approve of that you also won’t do like them.
Yes also talked to them in the past — thet seem to all come from fancy backgrounds and seem like cool people. Obviously cannot vouch directly to the associate experience.
If you end up getting an offer and decide whether to take, it probably comes down to 2 things:
1) healthcare/ value based healthcare — if you are bullish on this and want to specialize here then great, if you are dead set on doing consumer, for example, obviously not a good spot for ya
2) Nashville — this can be a big one. Most finance ppl are in the north, and moving around for a job is one thing at 22 and starts to become a little different at 24, especially when you’re basically deciding to live there until 26-27.
I’ve heard first hand they pay undermarket. COL of Nashville is cited as why that’s okay.
Their pay is market for the fund size +/- 10K. Keep in mind no state or city taxes in Nashville, TN makes you come out above market on a net basis
This firm baffles me. There's no doubt that Adam Boehler has the credentials to launch a healthcare investment firm but the strategy, talent, portfolio and even stakeholders are so off-market and so bizarre that I've no idea how this firm will hold it together in the near-term.
On VBC...that's a total joke. this is a buzz word/phrase that GPs use to fake it till they make it in raising capital from LPs who can't tell the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. VBC's been around 20+ years and it's still only 6% of the market.
Adam himself is super well-networked and had political ambitions from the beginning. He was vying for a significant role under Trump before he got nudged aside. But I've heard that LPs' #1 concern is that he's not even dedicating most of his time to the fund.
On strategy, they do everything from incubation to buyout, all the in the same fund. Not in different pools/vehicles or even different teams, but all in one. So as a VP at Rubicon, you'd do incubation/early-stage investments one day and buyouts/carve-outs another, all in healthcare, one of the most complicated/nuanced/specialized sectors there is. I've never seen any firm pull this off successfully in North America/US. There's other funds that can get away with doing a little bit of everything in shallower markets globally...but you just can't do this dabble-a-bit-in-this, dabble-a-bit-in-that when there are so many other capable healthcare specialists out there in the US.
Speaking of which, his motley crew of a team is wild. Aside from Adam, there's three other partners. One random dude from Soros who was a generalist investor, another guy who's ex-hedge fund and family office (so again, limited healthcare experience) and a third straight up govt policy guy. No industry veterans, no seasoned healthcare investors. And then a whole lot of operating partners and advisers, many of whom I'm sure allocate 1-5% of their time to Rubicon. This is wild.
On portfolio, all I've heard is that there's already several 0s in their portfolio. Unless they're doing 20+ investments a fund, "several 0's" is going to be a huge problem the next time they raise their next fund.
As for stakeholders, it's super weird that other healthcare names like Welsh Carson, Oak HC/FT, Sequoia, Warburg are invested in Rubicon. Idk if any of them have a GP stake but this brings up all sorts of questions on alignment, conflicts of interest, competitive edge.
As someone with a close friend who worked here, can confirm this is true. The investment strategy (if there is one) is wild, they are also making investments in public stock from the same fund. Incubations are not doing great, and burn a lot of cash because of bad VBC risk. Anecdotally, there are 1.5x more non-investment team members at an investment focused firm…
As someone with some loose connectivity to the firm — this is all apt
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