Company leader
Chris Severn
Co-founder and CEO
Turquoise Health
Chris Severn is the co-founder and chief executive of Turquoise Health, a San Diego company that builds price transparency and contract software for hospitals, health plans, and employers. He worked on hospital billing software at Cloudmed before he started it.
A plan drawn up in London
Severn and Adam Geitgey, a former director of engineering at Groupon, followed a proposed federal rule that would make hospitals publish their prices. They saw that the rule, if it passed, would matter a great deal to patients. At a WeWork in London, shortly before the pandemic, the two drew up the concept for Turquoise Health.
Turquoise launched in 2020, with Geitgey as chief technology officer. Its first public post set out the founders' view that "healthcare reimbursement is broken."
Hospital prices and early backers
By 2021 the team had gathered the public price files of about 6,000 US hospitals. Severn aimed past the price lists at the contracts behind them: "At Turquoise, we're taking a fresh approach to price transparency for patients by addressing the root causes with provider and payer contracts upstream."
Andreessen Horowitz led a $5 million seed round that year, joined by Bessemer Venture Partners and NBA champion Klay Thompson. Severn saw the coming No Surprises Act, which required estimate tools for patients, as support for the plan: "It really paves the infrastructure for how these estimates are supposed to work."
Toward a guaranteed price
Turquoise moved from price data to a contracting product, Clear Contracts, where hospitals and payers negotiate rates. Severn sees the next step as guaranteed prices for patients and cheaper transactions between payers and providers. In his words, "The throughline there is just get rid of the administrative cost of transacting $1 in health care."
Oak HC/FT led a $40 million Series C in March 2026. Severn argued that growth investors now look for "a very durable, sound business model, not just shiny growth metrics or some AI demo."