MicroCapClub · Sep 30, 2026 · 59m · 46m saved
With Will Heyburn, Co-CEO and CFO of Strata Critical Medical · Mat Schneider, VP of Finance and Investor Relations and CFO of Clinical Services at Strata Critical Medical
About 12 people die every day in the United States while waiting for an organ, and roughly 100,000 people are on a transplant list that produces about 50,000 transplants a year. Strata Critical Medical flies the organs, sends surgeons to recover them and supplies the heart-lung bypass teams.
Most of the industry's attention goes to the companies that make organ-preservation machines. Strata's management said the company makes money by running whichever machine a hospital picks, and by sending a nearby surgeon before anyone pays for a jet.
"This is entirely a supply problem."
Will Heyburn, co-CEO and CFO of Strata Critical Medical, on MicroCapClub, has worked on the transplant business since it started in 2019, serving New York City hospitals before building it into a coast-to-coast operation. He came from RedBird Capital Partners, one of Strata's largest investors. Mat Schneider, who runs finance and investor relations, spent 12 years on the buy side before joining two and a half years ago.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 59 minutes of audio, 13 minutes of reading.
Here are the 14 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
The transplant shortage is a supply problem, not a demand one, Heyburn said
Donors and recipients are getting farther apart: lung matching saw a nearly 80% jump in distance
Strata runs any preservation device a hospital picks and says the device market has room for many players
A cheap local look at a marginal donor can turn a 60% chance of failure into a 40% chance of saving a life
Owning aircraft is a box Strata has checked, not a lever it plans to scale
Strata has less than 10% of the third-party organ recovery market, Schneider said
Acquisitions are priced at mid-single-digit EBITDA multiples, and the company says it walks away above that
Keystone, bought at a higher multiple, has grown 20% plus for several straight quarters
New donation rules are mostly about restoring trust, which management sees as the main limit on donor numbers
1. A Supply Problem
Heyburn opened with what the company does. Organs survive only hours outside the body, so the hearts, livers and lungs Strata moves must arrive fast, often with little warning. Strata also recovers organs surgically and supports open-heart surgery at more than 250 hospitals with heart-lung bypass machines and staff.
"About 50,000 lives are saved in America every year because of organ transplants." — Will Heyburn
The list understates the need
"Sadly, about 12 people die every day in the United States that are waiting on the transplant list for an organ that's not going to come in time." — Will Heyburn
"So there's a 100,000 people that are on that list for about 50,000 transplants that might occur, but there's millions more that need organs, but may not qualify for a variety of reasons." — Will Heyburn
He said the fix is to combine on-demand logistics available around the clock, clinical services delivered locally and ground support, all reachable in one phone call. The customers are transplant centers, the hospitals with the recipients, and organ procurement organizations (OPOs), which find donors.
Three services, different market shares
Organ placement, helping transplant centers judge whether a donor suits a recipient: a very small share today, growing quickly
Organ recovery, sending Strata's own surgeons to a donor by road or commercial flight
Logistics, by air and ground, where its share is larger
He said the clinical side grew more than 20% quarter over quarter in the most recent quarter.
