The journey from $40.000 to $17.5 million in 5 yearsCEO:
"Around the same time that I was getting started with Precipice, my father-in-law was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, and he began having a number of issues over time that required non-medical care. My mother-in-law had to get in-home help, and this was my first experience observing how much homecare was needed as my father-in-law’s health gradually declined. My wife Jill has a Master of Science degree and worked in the research ethics department of Capital Health. Shortly after her dad died, she spotted an opportunity to buy a health care business, but I didn’t think it was a good idea at first. My initial thought was that there would be too many people issues and how would you scale given the one-on-one nature of the service? My mind changed quickly when we did our due diligence and saw the impact that home care had on so many families living in stressful situations. There was a gap in the market around dementia training and home care was so needed. We bought the business and brought training to the caregivers providing care to 140 families.
When considering where we could take the business, I had experience in the venture capital and private equity world and knew that the average hold period for those types of funds was about 5 years. Given that I believed there was such a long-term opportunity, I didn’t want to be in a situation where we would be forced to sell. I wanted to control our destiny. This was the start of Nova Leap Health in 2016: we went through the CPC process (the Capital Pool Company (CPC) Program is a unique Canadian invention that supports earlier stage private companies to complete a go public transaction), seeded a shell company and we’ve been actively buying businesses ever since.
Our business model revolves around bringing training to the companies we acquire. This training had clearly been lacking with the service that my father-in-law received. Our clients pay us on an hourly basis (either directly or via long term care insurance or veteran’s benefit) and then we pay the caregivers, who are our employees. About 70% of our clients live with some form of dementia and the rest are a mix of mostly non-medical situations such as hip or knee surgery, palliative care, or simple companionship. In 2016 we had US$40,000 in revenues and in 2020 we had US$17.5 million in revenues. There is no magic to our success: this is very much a people business, and we find good businesses to acquire. Our biggest challenge is attracting as many good caregivers as possible to meet the growing demand due to shifting preferences because of the pandemic and aging demographics. We are a fast-growing company and home care is a global issue. We’ve been asked by different government agencies to consider making acquisitions in various geographies, including Europe, but this isn’t in our near-term plans. Our map for the future is to continue on the same path and become a much larger company in more jurisdictions within the U.S. and Canada."