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Peer Fund / Dealmaker·RCM

Matt Holt

Managing Director and President, Private Equity at New Mountain Capital

New York, NY, USA

MH
Why they matter

The defining GP in healthcare RCM/payments consolidation — built Signify, Datavant, and Machinify at New Mountain, and is now assembling Thoreau, a ~$30B AI health-tech platform.

Background

Matt Holt spent roughly 24 years at New Mountain Capital (joined 2001 from Lehman Brothers M&A), rising to Managing Director and President, Private Equity, where he built the firm's healthcare franchise — forming Signify Health, architecting the $7B Datavant-Ciox merger, and assembling the Machinify payment-integrity platform. In December 2025 he left New Mountain to pursue a ~$30B buyout of five of its health-tech portfolio companies (Datavant, Machinify, Office Ally, Smarter Technologies, Swoop), combining them into a new AI-driven platform called Thoreau, backed by ICG Strategic Equity; as of mid-2026 he is also raising a new healthcare fund.

Notable deals

  • 2022
    Formed Signify Health and chaired its board through IPO and $8B sale to CVS Health
  • 2021
    Architected the $7B merger of Datavant and Ciox Health, creating the largest neutral health-data ecosystem
  • 2025
    Led New Mountain's acquisition of Machinify, combining it with Rawlings, Apixio PI, and VARIS into an AI payment-accuracy platform
  • 2025
    Led New Mountain's growth investment in Access Healthcare, a technology-enabled RCM platform

Call-prep brief

Background

  • ~24 years at New Mountain Capital (from Lehman Brothers M&A in 2001); became Managing Director and President, Private Equity, and the architect of its healthcare vertical.
  • Signature playbook: thesis-driven roll-ups of healthcare data, payments, and RCM assets — Signify Health (formed it, chaired board, $8B CVS sale in 2023), Datavant-Ciox ($7B, 2021), Machinify/Rawlings/Apixio/VARIS payment-integrity platform (2025), Access Healthcare RCM growth investment (2025).

Current focus

  • Left New Mountain in December 2025 to lead Thoreau: a proposed ~$30B combination of five New Mountain health-tech companies (Datavant, Machinify, Office Ally, Smarter Technologies, Swoop), backed by ICG Strategic Equity. Reported in May 2026 to be raising a new healthcare fund.
  • Cares about: applying AI to strip administrative cost from healthcare payments; privacy-centric data exchange; simplifying a fragmented health-tech stack into integrated platforms.

Sensitivities

  • The Thoreau transaction is not closed — diligence and capital-raising are ongoing; treat structure and valuation as confidential and fluid.
  • His relationship with New Mountain is delicate (buying assets from his former firm); avoid framing the departure as a rupture.
  • He is fundraising, so he may hear any inbound as an LP or co-invest pitch — be explicit about intent.

Questions to ask

  1. How does Thoreau's integrated stack change the buy-vs-build calculus for standalone RCM assets like Access Healthcare?
  2. Where does he see AI actually collapsing RCM labor cost versus just repricing it?
  3. Which payment-integrity or data-exchange niches remain outside Thoreau's perimeter and open to new platforms?

Outreach draft

Subject
Thoreau and the next RCM consolidation wave
Matt, Your move from New Mountain to build Thoreau is the boldest bet yet that healthcare administration consolidates into a few integrated, AI-native platforms — a thesis you've been proving since Signify and the Datavant-Ciox merger. We're mapping the revenue-cycle landscape for an active investment effort and would value your view on where standalone RCM assets still hold pricing power once platforms like yours internalize the workflow. Happy to share our market map in exchange for 30 minutes; we're equally open to discussing areas where our capital could be complementary to what you're assembling. Best regards, [Your Name]

Linked companies

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