Data analytics company Health Catalyst will pay a big price for Albuquerque tech firm Twistle, which provides patient engagement and communication software.
The publicly traded firm will acquire all equity interests in Twistle for an aggregate purchase price of about $104.5 million. That price is comprised of approximately $57.5 million in cash and $47 million in Health Catalyst common stock, plus a potential additional payout of as much as $65 million, based on certain targets, according to a June 24 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“We see an opportunity here for building a really sizable health care company," said Twistle founder and CEO Kulmeet Singh, when asked about the deal.
An investor presentation from Utah-based Health Catalyst says the acquisition of Twistle is important as health care organizations optimize care delivery in virtual settings.
Health Catalyst plans to pair Twistle's clinical workflow and patient engagement platform with one of its own offerings to enable a solution for addressing population health. Population Health is defined by the National Center for Biotechnology Information as “the health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes within the group.”
Twistle offers a patient engagement software that supports text, voice response and other modes of communication. Between 2019 and 2020, Twistle disclosed $18.2 million in funding, including a round led by New York-based health care technology and services investment firm Health Enterprise Partners, which invested more than $7 million.
The Albuquerque company has more than 40 customers, mainly health systems, with a 35% anticipated revenue growth rate, according to the investor presentation. Its acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.
The company employs about 65 people in total, with between one third and half in Albuquerque, according to Singh. It also has offices in Nashville and Seattle. Its growth plan involves developing care protocols for new markets, and it has a Covid-19 product line.
Twistle said it provided real-time screening and monitoring to more than 77,000 at-risk, Covid-19 positive patients and staff. In the end, the pandemic created a "tremendous growth opportunity" Singh previously said in a statement to Business First.
