ABA Centers of America plans to double its patient base next year.
The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based chain of autism treatment clinics is among the fastest-growing private companies in America, according to Inc.
Christopher Barnett, the founder and chair of ABA Centers, created the company in 2020 after struggling to find care for his daughter. The company operates clinics in 10 states. Mr. Barnett was recently named entrepreneur of the year by accounting firm EY.
Mr. Barnett sat down with Becker's to discuss the company's approach to growth in 2025 and beyond.
This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: ABA Centers is growing quickly. What's the catalyst behind this growth?
Christopher Barnett: It's the team of mission-driven individuals that we've been able to put together. We take a sophisticated approach to the space with subject matter experts that aren't just good at building business, but are also driven by the mission that we have to disrupt the ABA space.
When we made the decision to enter the ABA space, we correctly identified the limiting factor was going to be human capital. There's so much unmet demand across the country. We devised a model and innovated a model that has a differentiated value proposition for clinicians. We provide best-in-class care, and the right clinicians are excited by that. That produces the best clinical outcomes, which excites payers. All of it has come to fruition with our thesis. It's been a meteoric, explosive growth story, without deteriorating our clinical excellence.
Q: You mentioned that you've grown without private equity or acquisitions. What's behind that strategy?
CB: I think the right private equity in the space is a great thing.
The right PE sponsors that come into the space, and bring their business acumen and financing, as long as they're centered around, great clinical experience and positive clinical outcomes, I think it would be great. I think we need it. At the end of the day, there are so many kids sitting on waiting lists around the country in markets that I've yet to enter that need this life-changing care.
I don't want funds or private equity sponsorship that aren't cognizant of their potential to create life-changing clinical experiences for clients. I think there are some great funds out there and private equity groups that can add their business acumen to the right clinical model and stoke the flame for scalability.
For us, it's not something that we're opposed to. Our thesis was always to grow the business without equity sponsorship or debt. We have very little debt. We're self-funding our own growth to get to substantial enough scale to attract the right management team, and then to look for the right synergistic partner to help us grow. That's something we're starting to dip our toe into the water on and taking meetings we've been saying no to for years.
Q: What do the next five years look like for ABA Centers?
CB: The next five years are definitely a national brand. We are going to 2.5 times our client count next year. We're already substantially bigger than most of our competitors in the space. We are poised with infrastructure and the right team to 2.5x it in 2025. We're standing up two to five clinics a month at this point, all de novo growth. Eventually, we'll look at some acquisition targets. Once again, what's important to us is clinical excellence and the brand. Because we've figured out such an efficient way to grow de novo, which in a lot of ways allows for easier maintenance and management of your brand, we haven't done acquisitions yet.
We call ourselves the best cheeseburger. We've created the best cheeseburger in the world, and now it's our job to feed the masses with it. That's our goal. Our goal is more impact, more states and more markets for kids that are sitting on waiting lists to access our life-changing care.