inc.
opening as well as MedPharm senior staff members Jon Lenn, Lynn Allen and Eugene Ciolfi. Mobile car care company Get Spiffy, founded by Scot Wingo, expanded to the West Coast and opened an office in the Bay Area in February. Garrison Ramoso, Get Spiffy’s director of business development, oversees its presence in Silicon Valley. Additionally, Wingo announced the recent closing of a strategic investment from Shell Ventures in March. Texas-based Trinsic Residential Group filed for plans in February to open a 500,000-squarefoot, mixed-use development on the corner of Martin Luther
to a securities filing, the funds are capped at $9 million. The company hopes to close the gap by raising another $4 million.
Medical Day Spa of Chapel Hill opened a a new location at 301 Kildaire Rd. in Southern Village in March.
Sift Media, a 4-year-old startup founded by serial entrepreneur Jud Bowman, raised $1.5 million in new funding from 10 investors, according to an SEC filing in February. The company sorts through billions of mobile ad requests daily to target application installation advertisements for clients.
SoftBank Group, the owner of WeWork, announced in March that it plans to sell up to $41 billion worth of assets in order to buy back up to $18 billion of its own stock over the next year to pay off debt, buy back bonds and improve cash flow. “This program will be the largest share buyback and will result in the largest increase in cash balance in the history of [SoftBank Group],” CEO Masayoshi Son said in a statement. Following its closure in November, Chapel Hill University Inn located in the Blue Hill District is slated for demolition by Texas-based Leon Capital Group. Plans for redevelopment include a seven-story complex with 344,244-square-feet of commercial and residential space at 1301 Fordham Dr.
King Jr. Boulevard and North Estes Drive, tentatively named Aura Chapel Hill. The fourstory development will include commercial and retail spaces, offices, 400 residential units and a parking deck. ImagineOptix, a company focused on optics technology using virtual and augmented reality devices, raised $5 million in capital from an undisclosed investor in March. According 124
In February, Harris Teeter purchased 40 acres of land in Carrboro, which is part of the proposed first phase of construction of the Lloyd Farm mixed-use development, for $10.6 million. The grocery store plans call for 60,000 square feet of retail space. Additional goals for the development include a 220-unit senior living campus called The Lofts at Lloyd Farm.
PatientPay, a fintech company that offers online patient engagement and payment solutions, secured $6.15 million in growth financing at the end of March. The investment will fund electronic strategies to make patient payments more efficient and lower the cost of care. Additionally, it will expand PatientPay’s ability to serve the needs of revenue cycle management companies.
In early April, RTI International closed on its acquisition of New Jersey-based Medical Data Analytics (MDA), a global health economics and outcomes research consulting firm. Deal terms were not disclosed. The acquisition expands existing services of the RTI Health Solutions business unit in design and conduct of observational research with MDA’s capabilities in data collection and management, and physician and site recruitment. MDA will operate as a separate business operation of RTI Health Solutions for a period of time. All employees of MDA are expected to remain with the business following this transaction.
AWARDS AND HONORS
Durham was named the No. 5 city in CommercialCafe’s Top U.S. Cities for Women Working in STEM rankings. Durham scored highest for its percentage of women in the local STEM workforce (48%). Additionally, 57% of college-educated residents in Durham are women, and the city ranked No. 2 for its rent-to-median income ratio. Using 2018 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, CommercialCafe looked at cities with populations of at least 200,000 and examined factors like percentage of women in STEM jobs, percentage of local employment working in STEM, median earnings, women’s education attainment, the percentage of women in management, rentto-income ratio, unemployment and women’s access to health services. SmartAsset ranked Durham No. 18 in its 2020 edition of the “most recession-resistant cities.” In the study, categories like employment, housing and social assistance were considered.