Echo Health Ventures was just named to Inc.’s sixth annual Founder-Friendly Investors list, honoring the private equity, venture capital firms, and lenders with a track record of backing founder-led companies.

Inclusion in the list is a testament to the Echo team’s commitment to forging collaborative and lasting partnerships with the founders of some of the country’s leading health care innovation companies. Echo’s mission is to drive systemic health care transformation through hands-on, purpose-driven strategic venture capital and growth equity investing.

Echo’s dedicated Echo Health Advisors team, as well as the Echo Innovation Alliance members (Cambia Health Solutions, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee), work with founders to prioritize long-term partnerships and impact, with a focus on accelerating portfolio companies’ growth and bringing their innovations to scale nationally. Echo operates under a dual mandate to invest in opportunities that deliver both strategic impact and financial returns.

Inc. said applications were up 20 percent this year for what became the final list of 269 Founder-Friendly investment firms. To compile the list, the media brand went straight to the source: entrepreneurs who have sold to private equity and venture capital firms. Founders filled out a questionnaire about their experiences partnering with private equity, venture capital, and debt firms and shared data on how their portfolio companies have grown during these partnerships.

“We are happy to share with our readers the best, latest guidance on which venture capital firms, private equity firms, and growth-capital lenders have the track record and reputation of being especially good partners to founders and CEOs,” said Mike Hofman, editor in chief of Inc.