Coplex, a Phoenix-based firm that helps businesses spin off startups, has helped many fledgling Arizona ventures get through some rough patches. After a tough pandemic year of its own, Coplex has a new leader.
Zach Ferres co-founded Coplex back in 2012 and served as the company’s CEO for years until moving to the company's board last year, and the board has since handed the reins over to Jake Huber, Coplex’s new managing partner.
“We did have a really rough 2020,” Ferres said. “The portfolio has done really well and with Jake stepping in to take over, we're very much in rebuild mode.”
Huber is a previous startup founder himself and he was also a member of the team that originally brought Uber to Arizona. He also worked at Coplex from 2018 to 2020 as a program manager, where he coordinated the venture building experience for startup companies.
Coplex has pivoted its business model several times over the years, but its most recent iteration took root in 2019.
Coplex works with large corporations and helps them spin out new startups. Coplex charges a management fee to the corporations to run its scaling program but it also takes an equity position in all of the companies under its wing.
“Coplex will help build an innovation portfolio on behalf of your corporation,” Ferres said. “We build that and manage that for you and find the entrepreneurs and the ideas that kind of fit the area of interest.”
Over the years Coplex has helped launch Valley startups including Qwick, Yellowbird and Insurmi. Ferres said Coplex now has about 60 companies in its equity portfolio, most of which are Arizona technology companies.
Just before the pandemic, Solera Health founder Brenda Schmidt joined Coplex as its first president, before shifting to the CEO role. Given Schmidt’s health care background, Coplex put a special focus on working with health care enterprises during the pandemic.
Schmidt subsequently left Coplex in May and Ferres said the company has since returned to its broader, pre-pandemic specialty of working with businesses looking to better propagate innovation.
Coplex now has six employees and works with 10 others on a contract basis. The company did have to let some people go during the pandemic, but Ferres said they were able to help them find work at other startups or portfolio companies in town.
Bittersweet exit
Building a startup is an exceptionally difficult task and it comes with a basket full of emotional challenges for founders, including the mix of joy and sorrow that sometimes accompanies an exit.
On Monday, SmileVirtual, a Phoenix-based member of the Coplex portfolio that helps dentists connect with new patients, announced that it had been acquired by Udo, a Utah-based secure communication platform for health care providers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Jenn Rhoades, co-founder and CEO of Smile Virtual, described the move as bittersweet; Her co-founder Brian Harris will join Udo as chief strategy officer, but Rhoades and the ten SmileVirtual employees will not be transitioning over to Udo.
