Will Clinipace be as big someday as Quintiles? Maybe.
The announcement Clinipace made Thursday declares the purpose of its management: “M&A war chest,” and Hatteras Venture Partners in Durham is among the backers of that stance.
Clinipace Worldwide, a growing clinical research organization based in Morrisville, is looking to make more acquisitions and mergers, having raised some $50 million in new capital. Clinipace is one of the Triangle’s growing CRO/life science services hub that includes Quintiles, PRA International, INC Research and others.
The company is looking to accelerate an already aggressive growth strategy.
In 2013, Clinipace grew its revenue by 372 percent to $58.6 million, That was good for spot no. 1,178 on the Inc. 5000 list.
In 2014, grew revenues at 40 percent, good for a 348 percent growth rate over the past three years.
Clinipace has already made five acquisitions over the past five years, growing its employee headcount to some 700 spread across 300 countries.
The new funding is a mixture of investment capital and debt.
New backer Virgo Investment Group in California led the capital infusion. Crestline Investors also joined in as a first-time backer.
Existing investors Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, Harbert Venture Partners and Mario Family Funds also participated as did Hatteras.
“With experts located in over 30 countries, Clinipace is the only mid-size CRO with broad geographic capacity, local knowledge and deep therapeutic expertise built on a proprietary eClinical technology,” said Jeff Williams, the Clinipace CEO.
“Our model delivers unprecedented visibility, integration and collaboration among functions across clinical trials operations; walls that separate functions in a typical CRO are broken down, and information flows more quickly and freely,” he added in a statement.
“With Virgo, we found investors who, not only think about innovation like we do, but who also provided a financing vehicle designed to be used as needed to support our M&A activities.”
Clinipace focuses on digital-based services.
“Clinipace presented an exciting opportunity in a large and growing segment of the healthcare sector. The fundamentals of the CRO industry are currently strong and the Company is at an inflection point in its growth, which can be catalyzed by the capital of our investment group,” said Jesse Watson, Founder of Virgo. “Our firm focuses on partnerships with successful entrepreneurs and management teams that share our values and our dedication to innovation. What we found in Clinipace is an organization that combines proven operational talent with a disruptor philosophy to drive both consistent execution and growth. We believe the CRO marketplace is ripe for re-imagination. Pharmaceutical clients are demanding new thinking and increased efficiency in their clinical trial operations, which creates an attractive market seam, or window of opportunity. Clinipace is ahead of the market in developing a novel business model that addresses not only the needs today, but those looming on the horizon.”
