Practice Better looks to opportunistic growth with $18-million CAD ...

After honing its AI tools and payments offering, the startup is seeking new ways to help practitioners grow.

Toronto-based Practice Better has closed a $13-million USD ($18-million CAD) debt facility from CIBC Innovation Banking. 

The credit facility, which closed in September, will help Practice Better explore new initiatives and growth opportunities, as well as double down on initiatives the startup believes are working, the company said. To date, it has raised $40 million USD.

Practice Better’s Nidal Haque said the new credit facility will give the startup “more optionality.”

Practice Better was founded in 2014 by CEO Nathalie Garcia as an all-in-one software for wellness providers to manage a range of services, including scheduling, telehealth, and payments. Garcia originally built Practice Better to serve her own needs as a holistic nutritionist.

In an interview with BetaKit, Practice Better chief growth officer Abigail Keeso said the platform, which is used by over 18,000 practitioners in over 70 countries, is predominantly targeted to nutritionists and holistic wellness practitioners, but noted it is being used by other healthcare providers, such as chiropractors, registered dieticians, and functional medicine practitioners.

This credit facility is Practice Better’s first capital injection since the startup secured a $37.7-million CAD growth investment from Kansas City, Mo.-based growth equity firm Five Elms Capital. At the time, and again this week while speaking with BetaKit, the startup declined to disclose whether that investment gave Five Elms a majority stake.

Since the closing of that financing in December 2023, Practice Better has been focused on expanding its artificial intelligence (AI) offerings and doubling down on embedded payments, according to Nidal Haque, Practice Better’s vice-president of finance and operations.

“We actually did not need the money at all,” Haque told BetaKit in an interview, claiming the firm has long been profitable.

“We were raising this credit facility purely opportunistically to have a stronger banking partner and have more optionality,” he added.

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Haque explained that one priority Practice Better has been focused on is unlocking payments as an additional revenue driver. He noted this has been a key focus area since August 2023, when the company launched an embedded payments solution with payments processing giant Stripe. 

Practice Better launched the solution to centralize and simplify the payments experience for users, according to Haque. By controlling the entire process within the platform, users no longer need external tools or systems to handle payments and can manage everything through an integrated payments dashboard. 

For Practice Better, owning the payments experience allows the startup to oversee the financial and commercial aspects of payments, Haque said, and allows the company to monetize the solution and set its own terms.

“Before that, we just had very simple payment integrations with some of the larger providers, where a customer would go and create their account [and] they would link it to Practice Better,” Haque said.

Since the feature launch in August, Practice Better has seen its payments revenue triple, Haque said. He also claimed that transaction processing volume has doubled on a monthly basis and continues to grow steadily month over month, calling embedded payments “a significant driver” of revenue retention and growth.

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Practice Better has also been focused on expanding its AI-enabled offerings to practitioners in the last year and a half. These include an AI charting assistant that the company says reduces time spent on note-taking, and an AI dictation tool that allows practitioners to dictate notes instead of typing. 

The platform also now automates Google review requests, addressing what Keeso described as a common challenge practitioners face in attracting clients and filling their practices.

“Practitioners are doing a lot of tedious tasks, and tasks they have to repeat over and over again,” Keeso added. “We really believe that AI can be helpful in saving them a lot of time and reducing that strain of burden … that’s leading to a lot of practitioner and healthcare burnout.”

Part of that also means remaining open to partnerships and acquisitive growth. In July 2023, the startup acquired That Clean Life (Keeso’s exited startup) to integrate nutrition planning and healthy eating into the workflows of customers and care plans for clients. It has also built a partnership with Ottawa-based Fullscript, which includes an integration that streamlines the process of recommending and managing supplements within Practice Better’s system.

Speaking about Practice Better’s future potential acquisitions, Haque said, “We’re not just going to gobble up companies just because it looks cool. I think we’re very, very intentional about it.”

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Practice Better’s growth strategy also includes expanding the team—Haque noted the startup’s team now sits just shy of 70 people, a number Practice Better expects to sit as high as 84 by the end of next year. “We want to run a very lean, profitable, sustainable enterprise by hiring top talent who can do really, really awesome work, and we don’t want to have headcount bloat,” he added.

Beyond offering the “best economics,” Haque said Practice Better sought a banking partner that was “heavily vested in the relationship and in our success.” He noted that CIBC’s role as “deeply entrenched” in the startup ecosystem would help create connections with more tech companies.

“Practice Better’s innovative platform is helping thousands of healthcare practitioners run more efficient practices, giving them more time to focus on their clients and scale their impact,” Josh Olawale, director at CIBC Innovation Banking, said in a statement. “We are excited to support their continued growth and help redefine what is possible in the health tech space.”

Keeso added that the new financing is also aimed to help Practice Better unlock new opportunities to help practitioners grow their businesses. 

“[Our customers] go to school to learn how to become practitioners and not to do business, and I think there’s a lot we can still do to help their businesses grow, not just help them with their day-to-day,” she added.

Feature image courtesy Practice Better.