Danish Qureshi has been here before. As the former CEO of LifeStance Health, he helped scale a behavioral health platform to over 7,000 clinicians across 600 clinics, serving over a million patients annually.
Now, with $40M in seed funding, he's setting his sights on a new mission, and one even more personal: transforming pediatric care through Zarminali Health.
A Personal Mission Born from Experience
For Qureshi, this isn't just another healthcare venture. His journey in beginning Zarminali stems from personal experience - watching his daughter navigate a fragmented healthcare system, feeling the frustration that countless parents face when their children need care. Parents and caregivers are stressed out in America - financial stress, lack of sleep…the grind does not stop for those who have children.
The stress only compounds for families when your child is sick or dealing with autoimmune issues with answers not readily available. Navigating the fragmented, siloed healthcare system is a nightmare. Speaking with firsthand experience myself, you only want your child to thrive. Anything getting in the way of that is heartbreaking.
The Path to Pediatric Transformation
So clearly there's a problem with fragmented care. Qureshi is putting forward Zarminali as a solution to fix this fragmentation in pediatrics. What's the perceived market opportunity?
Pediatrics represents the second-largest specialty behind adult primary care, yet the landscape is fragmented. Regional setups dominate, and families must navigate a maze of disconnected services for their children. Qureshi sees this as both a challenge and an opportunity.
Danish Qureshi's Three Guiding Principles as a Founder
Drawing from his experience building two prior successful healthcare companies (with successful exits either to larger strategics or the public markets in the case of LifeStance), Qureshi approaches Zarminali with three fundamental beliefs as a founder:
Mission Must Drive Everything: If you're just doing something for the financial return, it's hard to wake up every day to rally you and the team around it. Do...something important.
Target Problems Worth Solving: ANY startup will be a significant amount of blood, sweat, and tears. If you're going to make that personal investment, go after something big and meaningful. Don't just go out and copy whatever someone else is doing.
Innovation and Disruption Over Imitation: Make sure you leave your industry or sector better off than where you found it. Do things meaningfully different - and better - than the status quo.
Reimagining Pediatric Care Delivery
With the above principles in mind, Zarminali's vision goes beyond traditional pediatric models with the goal of creating a better, unified experience for both patients and clinicians. The company is building:
- A unified national brand accessible to families everywhere (focused on 30 initial states comprising 90% of the U.S. population);
- A multi-specialty hybrid practice where coordination replaces fragmentation and reduces clinician / patient burdens;
- A tech-forward approach integrating an inviting clinic design, modern UI and patient experience, telehealth, and asynchronous communication for questions parents have that can wait until later; and
- Multiple access points - from regular appointments with your pediatrician to 1 AM telehealth requests, Qureshi wants Zarminali to be everywhere for stressed out families and caregivers. He mentioned co-located urgent care and clinics as a first step along with telehealth, wrapped around the normal pediatrician visit cadence.
The Pediatric Margin Problem
Now of course, we've seen several primary care players struggle with margins and growth at scale, particularly in retail health.
I asked Danish if Zarminali had plans to tack on a concierge-esque subscription fee to account for low margins and re-introduce some pricing flexibility, but his response revealed his philosophy and ultimate vision for Zarminali: Care needs to be equally accessible to everyone, not just reserved for folks who can afford a certain level of care.
Rather than pursuing a premium subscription model, Zarminali aims to deliver concierge-level care through operational discipline and standardization of the model.
Easier said than done, but we're talking about someone who has walked the walk before - twice. Still, the economics will be tough to overcome.
Zarminali's 36 Month Roadmap
What do the next 24-36 months look like for Zarminali now that they're funded with $40M in the coffers ($40M in seed funding, by the way - led by General Catalyst)?
Qureshi gave me a sneak peak, saying Zarminali would enter the top 30 states that account for 90% of the US population. Specific goals and growth targets include the following:
- Zarminali will expand primarily through organic, de novo growth - similarly to how Oak Street Health or One Medical scaled. They want to control the process and quality of their sites from day one rather than having to implement significant change management or integration.
- On the M&A front, they'll partner and acquire practices that share their vision in complementary markets to build density, targeting existing practice groups in states with alignment to the Zarminali vision, a great reputation in the local market, and a high degree of clinical quality.
- Building subspecialty services based on actual referral patterns (i.e., bringing certain pediatric subspecialists in-house for specialties receiving disproportionate, outsized numbers of referrals)
Culture as the Foundation and Balancing Scale with Quality
Qureshi's team isn't rushing blindly into expansion. I asked him how he balances growth and scale with culture and quality. It's a black box that's hard to solve in healthcare.
"This is an area where many companies fail," Qureshi acknowledged. "You can do culture really well when you're small. You can do high growth well if growth is all you're focused on.
"To do both well with a strong culture is very difficult."
Zarminali's solution? Bake culture into everything from day one - from clinic design to operating principles. As Qureshi puts it, "If you don't do it now, it's impossible to do it when you're at 500 to 1,000 employees."
In Zarminali, we're witnessing a veteran leader's attempt to transform pediatric care, powered by personal experience, proven principles, and a deep commitment to building something that truly matters personally.
The Outlook on Zarminali Health
Qureshi & co haven't picked an easy vertical with slim margins, but:
- It's an experienced team;
- They know how to scale; and
- They're working to create something bigger than themselves.
I'm looking forward to following along the Zarminali journey as they set out with a pretty lofty goal in the world of tech-enabled services.
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