A fast-growing health care analytics firm headquartered outside of Dallas has expanded with the acquisition of a St. Louis startup.
Irving, Texas-based Lightbeam Health Solutions Inc. has purchased CareSignal in a deal the companies said will bring together two technology firms focused on lowering medical costs and improving patient outcomes for health care providers. Terms of the deal, which closed last week, were not disclosed.
Lightbeam, founded in 2012, has developed a health care analytics platform it says curates data to help health care organizations determine the best care for patients and manage their costs. Founded in 2015, CareSignal (formerly Epharmix) has developed a remote patient monitoring platform used by health systems, payers and physician groups. Its platform uses data and artificial intelligence to facilitate text message and phone-based engagement programs for patients with chronic conditions, behavioral health and maternal care.
“Lightbeam and CareSignal share a vision for the future of health care: care that is proactive, cost-effective and data-driven. Lightbeam continues to see double-digit year-over-year growth, and CareSignal will help further accelerate our mission to deliver a revolutionary approach to population and risk management,” said Lightbeam founder and CEO Pat Cline.
The two companies said their overlapping missions of improving patient care and management while also reducing health care costs attracted each to the acquisition. Lightbeam said it plans to integrate CareSignal's platform into its analytics technology.
“The synergies between our companies are incredible. I’ve been part of many of these things over 30 years and I’ve never had one that had this much alignment,” said Lightbeam President Jerry Shultz.
Shultz said Lightbeam saw the potential of CareSignal’s technology through some of its clients who used the St. Louis startup’s platform to interact with its patients.
“We could see that the data and the outcomes of these two clients and how they were managing patients with behavioral health conditions was tremendous,” he said.
CareSignal co-founder and CEO Blake Marggraff said all of his company's roughly 40 employees will join Lightbeam as part of the acquisition. It will also retain its office in the Cortex innovation district.
For Lightbeam, its purchase of CareSignal comes as it has experienced continued revenue growth in recent years and has earned a spot on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest-growing private companies in each of the past four years. Shultz said Lightbeam has annual recurring revenue of about $40 million and that its acquisition of CareSignal will push that figure above $50 million.
Prior to its deal, CareSignal raised $7.2 million in venture funding. Marggraff said major investors included HealthX Ventures, BOLD Capital Partners and BioVentures Investors. Local backers of the company have included BioGenerator, Cultivation Capital, RGAX and the St. Louis Arch Angels. In addition to Marggraff, CareSignal’s co-founders include Chief Medical Officer Avik Som, Chief Developer Evan Huang, Vice President of Product C Stavridis and President/Chief Operations Officer Joe McDonald.
