Despite the pandemic, Overland Park-based Propio Language Services nearly doubled its revenue and employee base last year. As CEO and partner Marco Assis looked to the future, he wanted to find an investor to accelerate that momentum.
He hired Mariner Capital Advisors to lead the roughly six-month search and picked TT Capital Partners (TTCP), a growth-stage investment firm based in Minneapolis that targets health care technology and services companies.
Assis declined to share the financial details but said two of the three partners at Propio retired as a result.
Proprio is a technology-enabled interpretation, translation and localization service provider of more than 200 languages. Most of its clients are in the health care industry, and TTCP brings a wide network of investors, contacts and portfolio companies in that area.
More important than the funding, Assis wanted a partner that supported Propio’s vision, team and its push to plant deeper roots in the Kansas City market.
The investment allows Propio to accelerate hiring, including building out the executive team. It employs about 50 people and aims to surpass 100 this year. One new exec, Brian Singer, officially joins the company in July as chief technology officer. He most recently led cloud security and network engineering with Amazon Web Services. Propio plans to fill roles across departments in areas such as client success, business development, finance, operations and HR. Assis also expects the company to double its revenue this year.
“We’re definitely a disrupter in our industry and we have big ambitions when it comes to market share and what we want to do for our clients,” Assis told the Kansas City Business Journal.
The funding boost comes on the heels of the May 1 acquisition of Dayton-based Vocalink Global, a company that specializes in document translation and localization, as well as in-person interpretation.
TTCP’s investment allows Propio to pursue other potential acquisition opportunities and develop more solutions and features for its proprietary mobile app platform, Propio ONE, which offers access to on-demand and scheduled interpretation services. Clients can access remote interpreters in about 30 seconds, and Propio now is building out technology to make it easier to schedule in-person interpreters.
“We see a big opportunity to win market share and most importantly, advance our team’s careers,” he said.
Assis credits the company’s growth to several factors, including its focus on cultivating talent, being nimble, listening to what clients need and adding value. The Covid-19 pandemic only accelerated demand for its remote and virtual interpreter services.
“When it comes to business and success, to me, it’s all about disrupting and making a difference – and doing better than anybody else,” Assis said. “I envision this business becoming a top three player in our industry in the next two or three years.”
