Frist Cressey Ventures (FCV) is a Nashville, Tennessee-based healthcare venture capital firm founded in 2016 by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, MD and his longtime business partner Bryan Cressey. The firm was built on a singular and mission-driven thesis: to transform healthcare and improve patient lives by backing founders using technology to reshape how care is delivered across the United States. Now in its tenth year, FCV has grown from an early-stage healthcare specialist into a near-billion-dollar platform with 44 investments, 14 successful exits, and a strategic LP base that touches more than 50 percent of the American population. The firm has been recognized by Time Magazine as one of the top US venture capital firms, and its first two funds rank in the top five percent of all venture capital funds for their respective vintages.
Fund IV closed in February 2026 at $425 million, oversubscribed, bringing FCV's total assets under management to nearly $1 billion. The close marks a decade of continuous operation and comes on the heels of 13 investments made by the firm in 2025 alone. The fund drew support from both returning and new limited partners, with a particularly notable LP base composed of major strategic healthcare organizations including The Cigna Group Ventures, MedStar Health, and OhioHealth. These three strategic LPs collectively provide healthcare services to more than 50 percent of the US population, giving FCV's portfolio companies meaningful distribution leverage, direct pilot opportunities, and access to decision-makers inside large payor and health system networks that most VCs cannot replicate. Approximately 25 percent of FCV's portfolio companies have already received investment from at least one of these strategic partners. The fund will continue FCV's early-stage focus, backing companies building technology and tech-enabled services to transform care delivery, with expanded emphasis on AI-native models. FCV's Fund I and Fund II have each been benchmarked in the top five percent of all venture capital funds for their respective vintages, providing the LP conviction that drove the oversubscribed close of Fund IV.
Leadership
FCV was co-founded by Senator Bill Frist, MD, who serves as Co-Founder and Managing Partner and sits on the firm's Investment Committee. Frist served two terms as a US Senator representing Tennessee and served as Senate Majority Leader from 2003 until his retirement in 2007. His legislative record includes instrumental roles in the passage of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act and the PEPFAR legislation, which provided life-saving treatment to over 20 million people globally. His combination of clinical expertise as a physician and political connectivity as a former Senate leader gives FCV an unusual and powerful position in healthcare policy discussions. Bryan Cressey serves as Co-Founder and Managing Partner and is also the founder and managing partner of Cressey and Company, a Chicago and Nashville-based private equity firm focused on healthcare and IT. Caroline Young, who leads stakeholder and partnership development at the firm, previously led the Nashville Health Care Council and co-launched NashvilleHealth with Senator Frist.
Investment Strategy
FCV's strategy is built around three pillars it describes as its differentiated healthcare network, hands-on leadership support, and healthcare policy expertise. The firm invests at the early stage, typically at Series A and Series B, and takes an active board and advisory role in every portfolio company. Every CEO partner has access to FCV's leadership support structure, tailored to the specific needs of that company as it scales. The firm's strategic LP network provides a level of market access and validation that functions as a structural advantage for portfolio companies seeking pilots, contracts, and co-investment from major health systems and payors. FCV also runs the FCV Collective, a curated annual cohort of senior healthcare executives from organizations including AT&T, NVIDIA, Humana, and UC Irvine, who meet throughout the year to discuss systemic healthcare challenges and visit Washington DC to engage with policymakers and administration officials. Separately, the firm hosts the annual FCV Forum, an invitation-only leadership retreat that has convened executives from companies including FedEx, Oracle, HCA Healthcare, Johnson and Johnson, Kroger Health, and NVIDIA. This policy and leadership infrastructure is central to how FCV sources deals, validates its portfolio companies' commercial strategies, and accelerates customer introductions.
Notable Investments
FCV's portfolio of 44 investments spans some of the most recognized names in value-based care and applied AI for healthcare:
Notable Exits
FCV has completed 14 successful exits across its portfolio of 44 total investments, a strong exit ratio for an early-stage healthcare specialist. The most recent publicly disclosed exit was SpectrumAi, which exited in August 2025. The firm has not publicly disclosed the full list of exits, but the depth of its exit track record alongside top-decile performance from Funds I and II has been central to the LP confidence that drove Fund IV to an oversubscribed close.
Other
Founders should understand that FCV is one of the most strategically differentiated healthcare VCs in the US, not simply because of its LP base but because of the active ecosystem it has built around its portfolio.
Access to FCV means access to warm introductions into The Cigna Group, MedStar Health, and OhioHealth, three of the largest healthcare organizations in the country, as well as to FCV's broader network of senior healthcare executives through the Collective and Forum programs.
This makes FCV an especially compelling partner for founders who need not just capital but customer relationships and health system credibility to prove out their model. The firm's policy connectivity through Senator Frist is also genuinely distinctive: founders in regulated healthcare verticals can benefit from the firm's ability to help them understand and navigate Washington-level healthcare policy shifts.
FCV is exclusively US-focused and early-stage, so founders at seed or pre-seed may be slightly early, and founders in non-US healthcare markets or non-healthcare sectors will not be a fit.
United States
