Health IT firm hauls in $6M

SARASOTA — Voalte, a health care information technology company with a niche in helping nurses communicate through iPhones and smart phones, secured a $6 million investment it hopes will facilitate a significant growth spurt.

Voalte CEO Rob Campbell says the funds, from undisclosed investors, are strategic, not venture capital-based. Campbell says the investors are from billion-dollar-plus health care enterprises who recognize Voalte's core product, intuitive applications, require a sizable, and competent, employee base for deployment and service. “They have a deep understanding of the marketplace and moving the technology forward,” Campbell tells the Business Review.

Campbell adds that the investors' interest in Voalte, which stands for voice, alarm and text, mirrors a surge in customers. Clients include Massachusetts General Hospital, Texas Children's Hospital and Ann and Robert H. Laurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. More than 20,000 clinicians use Voalte's technology nationwide.

“The health care market has caught up with us,” says Campbell. “We are at the point in the company's life where we have to scale operations.”

Founded in 2009, Voalte currently has 44 employees. About a dozen employees work on sales, a figure Campbell says has doubled in the last year. The company now expects to increase its payroll significantly, to at least 150 employees within 18 months, with the new capital. The employees will handle both current contracts and new product development.

Voalte, moreover, will soon be getting a new home. The company plans to move to new office space, on Fruitville Road, by early 2013. It outgrew its current space, on Bee Ridge Road, soon after it opened, says Campbell.

The Business Review named Voalte one of three local “companies to watch” for 2012 earlier this year. Read more about the company here and here.