Startup Central: VisitPay acquired for $300 million

Sharon Fisher//May 5, 2021//

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photo of stagedoto — StageDotO’s Boise office, in a 1905 building. Photo courtesy of State Historic Preservation Office

Boise-based VisitPay, a health technology company that was named to the Tech Tribune list of the best startups in Boise and the best startups in Idaho, was acquired by R1, a Chicago-based health technology company, for approximately $300 million. The company was founded in Boise in 2010, with one of its first customers being the St. Luke’s Health System. In 2020, the company said it experienced record platform growth, 100% contract renewal, deployment at 10% of US not-for-profit hospitals, and an NPS (Net Promoter Score) average of 44, in an industry where the average is 16-27.
SMHeuristics is changing its name to Vessel. The Boise-based company provides both supply chain management and go-to-market services, including off the shelf and custom sourcing and manufacturing, logistics, compliance, quality control, vetting, financing, supply agreements and warehousing. The company maintains offices in the US and Asia linking vendors and manufacturing resources. GTM capabilities include branding, packaging, sales, distribution development, marketing and advertising to include full digital marketing, website design and development with a focus on e-commerce, content creation and lead generation.
Mandiant, a cybersecurity company based in Alexandria, Virginia, has selected Boise-based PlexTrac to provide a platform to support its Proactive Assessment Team with streamlined reporting and collaboration throughout their engagement cycle. The PlexTrac platform will support the delivery of Mandiant security assessment services, including internal and external penetration testing, mobile and web application testing, red teaming, and others. The Mandiant Proactive Assessment Team will use PlexTrac’s real time collaboration to improve assessment workflows and reporting times to expedite the completion of client deliverables.
POWER Engineers Inc. has acquired Colorado-based Salient Power Engineering LLC. Salient Power is an approximately 25-person, private firm with offices in Wheat Ridge, a suburb of Denver. The electric power system consulting firm has specialized in substation and power system studies, as well as renewable energy and heavy industrial markets across the United States. While the company already had a Denver office, the acquisition will expand its presence to about 125 people, allowing it to better serve Xcel Energy, its major client in the region. The company also said it would purchase enough renewable hydropower to cover the energy use of its Hailey headquarters and Meridian campus, approximately 3,000 MWh per year, to be 100% renewable energy in its Idaho offices.
Similarly, Porvair plc has announced that its Boise plant, responsible for the manufacture of high purity products for the microelectronics industry, is now considered to be 100% clean energy compliant. The energy is a mix of hydro, wind, and solar power with about 40% coming from hydroelectricity from Idaho Power, and the remainder using Idaho Power’s Green Power Program to cover the non-hydro portion of its electricity use with wind and solar energy sourced from the northwest.
MaxLite, a global manufacturer of energy-efficient lighting solutions based in West Caldwell, New Jersey, and Retrolux, a Boise-based lighting project development and implementation software platform, have announced a new partnership that will introduce the MaxLite product portfolio to ESCOs, electrical contractors, and other clients using the Retrolux platform.
Retrolux announced a similar partnership with Light Efficient Design/ RemPhos (LED), a manufacturer of LED lighting retrofit fixtures and HID retrofit technologies.
Joule Case, which is closing out its seed round, has been awarded a patent for its modular battery pack system. The company is headquartered in Seattle because that’s where the CEO lives, but the two founders are from Boise and the product is manufactured in Boise. In addition, Joule was recently covered by Forbes for its use at music festivals.
James Wagoner demonstrates the Joule Case, a stackable energy storage system intended to replace gas generators, at a Deal Forum event. Photo by Sharon Fisher

A future Boise developer uses Lovevery products to learn to build a city. Photo courtesy of Lovevery

Lovevery, the Boise-based educational toy company that received $20 million in Series B funding in 2019, pledged that by 2023 it would create a secondhand market for its subscribers and that it would improve its use of sustainable, carbon-free materials. In addition, the company was covered in People because of its celebrity customer base, and in In the Know.
In other celebrity news, Tony Robbins reportedly requested a private Black Box VRdemo workout. He flew his jet to Boise on a Friday night, participated in a 30-minute workout, and, according to the company, asked for one of his own.
Zennify, a Boise-based Salesforce consulting partner, has announced 30% year-over-year growth, which marks a year of strategic development for the consulting firm. With this growth, Zennify’s focus will be on expanding its leadership team and increasing the employee headcount, which will help Zennify keep up with the demand for its digital acceleration services and scale its consulting practice.
Iron Mule Inc. has raised $500,000 in seed round funding from accredited investors to expand its social purpose infused coffee brands into the national grocery chain market.
Just VR, a virtual reality training, collaboration and legal proceedings platform based in Eagle, has been accepted to the Legal Tech Hub Vienna accelerator program, the first U.S. company to do so.
StageDotO Ventures, based in Seattle and Boise, led a $9.1 million Series A funding round for Teal Communications, a Seattle-based Internet of Things networking service company. Stormbreaker Ventures, Capital Eleven, Accellius Capital, the Alliance of Angels (AoA), and principals of Steelhead Partners also participated.
Sparklight, a broadband provider in 21 states, including Idaho, has announced its participation in the FCC Emergency Broadband Benefit program, a temporary, $3.2 billion federal program designed to help households struggling to pay for internet service during the pandemic. The program provides eligible current and new Sparklight customers with active internet service up to $50 off their monthly bill based on their current internet plan and equipment rental, and up to $75 off for customers who live on a tribal land.
Boise’s Batteries Plus Bulbs store has become the first retail partner in Samsung’s Independent Service Provider program. The partnership will provide local Boise Samsung users access to receive smartphone repair services through Wireless Industry Service Excellencecertified technicians located in their community.
Two University of Idaho College of Engineering teams earned a total of $11,000 during the 16^thannual Northwest Entrepreneur Competition to launch sustainability and home gym business startups in Idaho. Biological engineering senior Addie White, of Boise, earned $10,000 for her first-place win in the Traditional Business category for her Campus Can Crushers, a durable, lever-action aluminum can crusher that helped U of I recycle 1.3 tons of aluminum during a campuswide competition this spring. Mechanical engineering seniors Nicholas Daquila, of Bellevue, Washington; Zachary Laymon, of Willamina, Oregon; Siobhan McGuire, of Post Falls; and Justin Stephens, of Portland, Oregon, won $1,000 and third place in the Traditional Business category for their modular home and commercial gym rock climbing wall holds called Cruxion.