Here's Why Investors Should Put Progyny on Their Radar

Progyny (PGNY -2.00%) is a recent healthcare IPO that aims to revolutionize the fertility industry. And with a market cap of just over $4 billion, it could still have a long way to grow in a huge market that's just begging to be disrupted. In this Jan. 7 Fool Live clip, Fool.com contributor Brian Feroldi explains what Progyny does, and why it's on his radar in 2021. 

Brian Feroldi: I'm going to pitch you a stock that I've pitched on the small-cap show before, but I think this is a stock that I do not own, but I can really see myself being a shareholder in 2021. I haven't started the presentation yet. That is Progyny. Have you heard of Progyny, Brian?

Brian Withers: Not until you mentioned it.

Feroldi: Excellent. [laughs] Excellent. That's how I like it. What does this company do? This is Progyny. Came public last year, pretty good rookie year up 172 percent so far. I like investing in winners, and this has been a winner, no doubt. What does it do? Progyny is focused on the fertility market. Their mission, helping parent haired come true. If you know anything about the pregnancy process, we ever been through it. Infertility is a huge medical issue. It affects one out of every eight people. A lot of people struggle to get credit for a huge number of reasons, and this is a massive market. This is a seven billion dollar market that is only growing overtime for a number of reasons. One of the big ones is, people are having kids later in life, and the biology is just different, the later you are in age when you try and get pregnant. The market is huge and it is growing. Currently, The market for fertility is very complex, and Progyny says that it is broken for a number of reasons. Huge capital costs, a ton of uncertainty. It's hard to find guidance and support, and the outcomes are sub-optimal. What does huge cost for everybody? What does Progyny do? Progyny has a nationwide network of fertility experts, specialists, and a massive and growing data platform that they offer as a service to employers to help their employees have a much better chance of having a healthy pregnancy. There have numerous clinical benefits to signing up at Progyny. Faster time to get pregnant, fewer miscarriages, healthier babies, fewer twins and triplets. It basically makes fertility process better. Here are some of the stats that they fur out for clinical outcomes. Importantly, it's not that they have better drugs or better providers or anything like that. It's that they use data and their experience and their network to take the tools that we already have and make them better for patients and providers. One of the big ways if they do this is with their Smart Cycle program, which changes the member's cost profile substantially to make it so that they have numerous tries to get pregnant. They offer one-on-one coaching and support, and these things really matter to people that are trying to get pregnant. As you can see, patients absolutely love them. Net promoter score of 72. That is super, super high. Progyny partners with a growing network of clinical facilities across the country as well as fertility specialists. They are the largest company doing what they're doing. They believe this gives them some network effects, which I buy because a lot of big companies, especially have locations all over America. In today's age, where remote work is becoming even more important, if you want to get these benefits out to remote workers, you need to have a large network at your disposal, and Progyny has built the biggest network so far. Now, they sell their primarily product as a service to get people the help they need to get pregnant. More recently, they launched a brand new service which helps to manage the pharmaceuticals that are involved with pregnancy. So this is a brand new business line that they opened up just a few years ago. Already, 70 percent of their clients are offering this to their patients, that to me is optionality at its finest. I loved to see this. I thought that 2020 was going to be a year of dead growth for this company. In fact, they actually grew very strongly throughout the year. They added on more members, they added on new clients, and look at this, near 100 percent retention. That doesn't show you that this service has value and is growing in importance? I don't know what will. They've already lined up a number of blue-chip customers and a huge variety of industries. They got their start in tech that they have expanded out. They have a whole bunch of customers. They believe that their size, their scale, and their clinical data does give them an edge in this market. Quickly about the management team here, so David Schlanger, he was previously the CEO of WebMD (WBMD). He's not the founder, but he has experienced at running big successful healthcare companies. They also have a pretty deep bench beyond him, some good inside ownership here. Total executives and officers going 33 percent, and they have some big backers that have taken major positions in the company. Then again, David Schlanger, the CEO, he owns five percent of the company by himself. Insiders want to see this company workout. Pretty decent reviews for the company and really attractive financial model. The revenue growth here has been pretty extreme. For 2020, they are expecting 98 percent to revenue growth that is aided by the huge customer retention and the durability of their product portfolio. Gross margin here is very low, just the nature of the businesses to service business. I think their gross margin is 21 percent or something like that, so it's a low margin business. But even despite that, we've already achieved profitability on a cash flow basis and on a net income basis, they just crossed over it into 2020. This is the numbers from last quarter, a very strong top-line growth. You had gross margin expansion. Again, 21 percent so it's a low gross margin business, but they produced a net income. Companies already profitable. Their two primary businesses are the fertility benefits. That's growing quickly, 46 percent, and their pharmacy business, again, launched just a few years ago, already about 30 percent of revenue and growing triple-digit rate. So two businesses that are growing very strongly, very clean balance sheet and lots of cash. When you look at the big picture here, huge market, strong financial, already profitable, already cash-flow positive, invested management team, huge growth potential. My questions about this business is, is this a nice to have service, or is this a need to have service? I initially thought it was a nice to have, but they grew really strongly in 2020. That must be the most challenging year for them to get the growth that they have. Another issue that potentially worth noting is there is some customer concentration here. Last year, two customers were 17 percent and 14 percent of sales. As they continue to add on new customers, that will drop, but make no mistake if they lost one of these big customers, that would hurt them financially. They do have some competitors, the direct competitors of the biggest ones to worry about. But so far, because this company is the biggest, it is outpacing the market. Very highly valued right now, about 11-12 times sales, and about 100 times forward earnings. But again, a 100 times forward earnings here so I don't worry about the price of sales. Even though they are expected to grow very strongly in 2020, they are expected to grow even faster in 2021. So that is Progyny, PGNY.