EQT and Canada's state pension fund buy a majority stake in Waystar, a provider of revenue cycle management software for healthcare orgs, at a $2.7B valuation
Heather Landi / FierceHealthcare :
Context & Ripple Effects
This deal is the opening move of a now-complete arc: EQT and Canada's pension fund took control of healthcare revenue-cycle-management software maker Waystar at a $2.7B valuation in 2019, then held it through two defining steps — Waystar's $450M+ acquisition of patient billing and payments vendor Patientco in 2021, which pushed it beyond claims processing into consumer-facing payments, and its 2024 return to public markets.
That IPO priced at $21.50/share to raise $968M at a roughly $3.6B market value ([[a:866901]]), meaning the buyout consortium's entry valuation cleared with room even before post-listing drift. For EQT specifically, Waystar sits alongside a string of mid-market software take-privates — including its ~$3B acquisition of compliance software firm Avetta and its majority stake in API company WSO2 — marking it as one of the most active software consolidators of this cycle.
First-order effects
- Waystar's existing backers sell control to EQT and Canada's pension fund at a $2.7B valuation, handing the revenue-cycle-management vendor a sponsor with capital and M&A appetite for its next phase.
Second-order effects
- Under private ownership, Waystar broadened from back-office RCM into patient billing and payments via the Patientco deal, forcing rival health-payments vendors to compete on a wider front than claims workflow alone.
Third-order effects
- The buy-to-build-to-IPO path — majority stake, bolt-on acquisition, public listing at a higher valuation — is becoming the template for how pension-backed PE firms like EQT monetize vertical software, as seen again in Avetta and WSO2.
The trend: Pension-fund-backed private equity is systematically taking vertical SaaS vendors private, building them up through bolt-ons, and exiting via public listings — with healthcare payments among the clearest examples.