Caravel Autism Health is working on a deal with the private equity firm GTCR, according to several industry sources.
The news service Mergermarket reported that Green Bay, Wisconsin-based Caravel Autism Health was nearing a deal with GTCR earlier in the month. Several other industry sources have shared similar information with Autism Business News.
Earlier in the year, GTCR acquired the medical software company Cloudbreak Health from UpHealth Inc. for $180 million.
GTRC’s move into behavioral health through Caravel Autism Health would be a shakeup in the autism therapy industry. While ABN has tracked smaller platform deals as the basis for entry into the market, big-dollar trades of developed companies have become increasingly rare.
Caravel Autism Health operates 62 locations in eight states, according to its website, concentrated in the Upper Midwest. It’s unclear what the terms of the deal are on the table. Caravel is currently backed by Frazier Healthcare Partners. Frazier invested in the company in 2018.
The sector saw a significant decline in deal volume in 2023 after five years of sustained historic levels of high dealmaking volume. The M&A firm The Braff Group found that autism therapy deals dipped to 22 in 2023, down 46% from the year before.
Industry insiders have noted a need for a big deal to shake loose a perceived bottleneck in autism therapy dealmaking that is preventing high interest and demand for these types of assets from translating into done deals. Many point to high inflation and historically (and likely unrealistically) high valuations of earnings multiples set during the peak of dealmaking in 2021.
Still, this isn’t the first autism deal of 2024. Last week, ABN reported that Sherman Oaks, California-based private equity firm Optimal Investment Group had acquired Orange, California-based autism therapy provider Spectrum Behavioral Therapies. At the end of April, venture capital-backed Opya Care announced the acquisition of Center for Autism Spectrum Therapy, Inc. (CAST), expanding its business into center-based care.
