May 16, 2025

Frist Cressey Ventures pursues $400MM Fund IV, plans next exec Forum By Milt Capps Bill Frist MD The firm also recently announced its further investment in San Francisco-based Carta Healthcare , via a round led by UPMC Enterprises, accompanied by strategic investors and others. Carta provides clinical data management solutions. FCV's founders are, of course, former U.S. Bryan Cressey Cressey is also founder and managing partner of Chicago- and Nashville-based Cressey & Company LP , a private equity firm focused on healthcare and information technology opportunities. FCV declares on its website that it is "a venture capital firm on a mission to transform healthcare and improve lives. Partnering with us means more than just capital. It means strategic support in the key areas that help businesses thrive, innovate, and deliver on their promise to affect systemic change." In its 1H 2025 Strategic Innovation Report , FCV notes it seeks to invest in and partner with "cutting-edge, high-growth ventures" that bring inspiration and new ideas for "genuine healthcare change." Toward such ends, the firm aims to "build transformative healthcare organizations" by partnering with portfolio companies that are characterized in the Strategic Innovation Report as nimble, imaginative, eager, and led by "like-minded entrepreneurs, innovators and out-of-the-box thinkers." FCV signals in its 1H 2025 report that both its investments and its thought-leadership efforts are crucial, given the failure rate of "policy initiatives, corporate efforts, and academic campaigns" that have from time to time been designed to advance U.S. healthcare. In keeping with its stated devotion to "improving health and well-being for all," FCV is continually convening and expanding its network of healthcare industry executives. One way it does that is by annually inducting up to 15 executives into successive cohorts of its FCV Collective . Successful applicants for the Collective are described by FCV as "Senior executives with proven record of innovation from leading health care companies, government agencies or entrepreneurial ventures." In addition, FCV's website today says its FCV Forum will next be held Nov. 10-12, 2025, at a site in the Nashville area. ( 2024 Forum webpage here .) The firm has said, "The FCV Forum is an opportunity that does not exist elsewhere: a retreat from the day-to-day, where a select group of the nation's top leaders from across healthcare and beyond come together in an invitation-only setting to understand the big picture trends and more importantly, to develop connections with each other and create a community of innovative leadership." Among dozens of senior executives who have attended one or more FCV Forums in recent years (with their current or former affiliations): Fred Smith (Founder FedEx), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Brian Cressey (CresseyCo), Joe Galante (Sony Music Group), Alex Gorsky (formerly Johnson & Johnson), Ellie Rubenstein (Manna Tee), Marc Watkins (Kroger Health), Sam Hazen (HCA Healthcare), Todd Park (Devoted Health), Monica Flores (NVIDIA), and the FC Ventures team. The Forum is described at one point online as "an exclusive gathering of visionary leaders." An event tagline online says "Colliding Spaces to Inspire Better Health." Katie Davis is FCV's director of strategic initiatives and events. Davis previously worked in Nashville for Cressey Company, according to her LinkedIn profile . VNC is seeking FCV confirmation of the FCV Forum date that is now online. This story will be updated, as warranted.