As we hunker down into the dog days of summer, let’s take a long overdue look at tech news from across Indiana:
—Carmel-based healthcare policy management company PolicyStat has been acquired by New Jersey’s iContracts, a provider of cloud-based contract compliance and revenue management software. The financial value of the deal was not disclosed.
A PolicyStat spokesperson said via e-mail that iContracts is “committed” to the Carmel office, which employed 65 people at the time of the acquisition. Two PolicyStat employees, vice president of client services Mark Boxberger and vice president of product Wes Winham, will remain in their current positions. President Steve Erlich, chief financial officer Steve Foughty, and business development vice president Rob Vaughan will also stay on temporarily through the integration period.
—ClearScholar, the Indianapolis education tech startup with an app that aims to foster engagement with college students, is expanding its downtown office. The company, which raised $1.25 million in venture backing earlier this year, plans to add 31 jobs by 2019. The Indiana Economic Development Corporation offered the company up to $39,000 in training grants and up to $340,000 in performance-based tax credits based on the company’s job creation plans. In March, the dozen-person ClearScholar team moved into a new 2,000-square-foot office, nearly doubling the size of its old digs.
In other company news, ClearScholar recently launched a pair of new products called Aware and Align. If a student calls emergency dispatchers from the ClearScholar app, first responders can access the Aware dashboard and app that shows the caller’s photo and a precise GPS location; the software also allows dispatchers to get a real-time view of the locations of all active emergency calls and on-duty security personnel. Align combines data from disparate university systems in order to build student personas, enabling schools to deliver customized content. For example, administrators could create broad groups that contain all first-year students, or all international engineering students, and push relevant news and information their way.
—The Indiana Economic Development Corporation has had a busy few months of expansion, relocation, and job creation announcements, including the following: Inscope Medical Solutions, a developer of suction and video laryngoscopes, has chosen Jeffersonville for its new headquarters thanks in part to an investment from Elevate Ventures; a new $24 million public-private partnership with Rolls Royce will establish the nation’s most advanced compact gas turbine engine lab at Purdue University; Knowledge Services, a woman-owned IT professional services company, is building a new headquarters in Hamilton County as it plans to add 400 new jobs by 2021; 3rd Dimension, a contract manufacturer specializing in 3D printing for complex metal parts, plans to create up to 45 new jobs by 2022; and EasyDial, a provider of portable hemodialysis machines, has chosen Porter County as the location for its first Indiana production facility, creating up to 96 new jobs by 2020. All of these projects benefitted from tax credits or other state government support.
—Finally, personnel news abounds. Former Octiv CEO Dustin Sapp has moved over to Formstack to serve as chief operating officer. Formstack helps businesses manage information and automate workflows through a suite of online forms. According to a press release, Formstack hired Sapp because of his successful track record helping companies grow. “The opportunity to add someone to the team who holds such great respect, experience, and entrepreneurial background is very rare,” said CEO Chris Byers.
BidPal, a startup making mobile bidding and fundraising software for nonprofits, has made two new appointments to its leadership team: Mark McCorkle is coming on board as the chief technology officer, and Mark Ward will serve as chief financial officer. Author and entrepreneur Bob Carr has also joined the company’s board.
McCorkle comes to BidPal after spending six years as an independent consultant for a variety of tech companies, including WebLink International. Ward comes to the company from VacayStay Connect, and he also has more than 25 years of experience with high-growth Internet, software, and service businesses.
