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Top 28 Utah-focused Monetary, Financial and/or Business News Nuggets for January 2025 that You Might have Missed

Top 28 Utah-focused Monetary, Financial and/or Business News Nuggets for January 2025 that You Might have Missed

In this writeup, you'll find info about 31 Utah-based organizations and 17 separate executives that we feel made the cut as "newsworthy" in January 2025. This being the case, welcome to this writeup on Utah's Top 28 Monetary, Financial and/or Business News Nuggets for January 2025.

Enclosed below (in no particular order within each section), are Utah's 28 Top Monetary, Financial and/or Business News Nuggets for January 2025 that may not have hit your radar.

For example ...

Funding News

  • Lehi, Utah-based Mobly announced in January that it has raised $4.3 million in Seed Round funding.

    According to its funding news release, Mobly's Seed Funding was
    — Co-led by Jump Capital and Eniac Ventures, with
    — Participation from Salt Lake City, Utah-based Peterson Ventures, which also led Mobly's pre-seed round.

    Additional participants in the funding included existing investors
    — Tenzing.VC and
    — Provo, Utah-based Element Ventures (formerly Peak Ventures).

    Notable angel investors in Mobly's Seed round included
    — Utah-based Jeron Paul and
    — Francis Santora.

    — Mobly's SaaS platform targets the "... event marketing space ... (with) ... automated CRM enrichment and engagement tools enhance lead quality and conversion rates, delivering significant value to its rapidly growing customer base of brands."

  • Salt Lake City-based Sethera Therapeutics has closed a $3 million round of funding, its first funding round. According to a post on the company's LinkedIn Profile, the "... funding will accelerate (Sethera's) efforts to further diversify the architectures of libraries we can generate through our proprietary enzymatic processes." Sethera is a drug development firm working to create an enzymatic cross-linking platform to enable the synthesis of highly stable, polymacrocyclic peptides that can simultaneously target multiple diseases, like cancers.

Acquisition News

  • Salt Lake City-based Vision Graphics has acquired a majority interest in South Salt Lake, Utah-based Queen of Wraps. According to the Vision Graphics announcement, Queen of Wraps will become a a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vision Graphics. The Queen of Wraps founders and owners (Bryan Griffith and the Griffith family), will become "... significant owners in the consolidated Vision Graphics business."

    Lehi-based private equity firm, Banner Capital Management, acquired controlling interest in (and recapitalized), Vision Graphics in July 2024.

    It may also be worth noting that Banner was the source of the acquisition announcement and that Vision Graphics and Banner jointly announced the acquisition of Queen of Wraps, suggesting (to this author), that Banner provided the capital for the purchase.

    Banner says it has over $450 million in Assets Under Management (AUM) as of 01 July 2024. Please not that financial terms of the acquistion were not disclosed in the release.

  • Bluffdale, Utah-based Canyon Labs has acquired the laboratory services and scientific consulting divisions of Rochester, New York-based iuvo BioSciences. According to the acquisition news release, the purchase will allow "... Canyon Labs to deliver comprehensive end-to-end solutions in pharmaceutical and medical device development." Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
  • South Jordan, Utah-based CallTower has acquired Montreal, Canada-based Inoria. According to the CallTower news release, Inoria is a "... CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) provider, integrator, and managed services (company that will help CallTower) ... deliver best-of-breed CCaaS solutions, expand its Customer Experience (CX) and Conversational Artificial Intelligence (CAI) capabilities to the global market." Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
  • Sandy, Utah-based Arbiter (a leader in athletic and sports program management) has acquired Tampa, Florida-based rSchoolToday. According to the Arbiter news release, the purchase of rSchoolToday "... will deliver an unmatched level of integration, encompassing student registrations, facility and game schedules, and payment processing -all within one cohesive platform. This partnership will strengthen collaboration across K-12 education systems, enhancing support for schools and associations while driving greater functionality and connection." Since its formation over 40 years ago, Arbiter has "... (processed) over $3 billion in ... (with) 18 million transactions facilitated, and supported (over) ... 3.7 million families." Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
  • Lindon, Utah-based Trucordia is acquiring another insurance brokerage; this time it's Boulder Insurance Solutions based in, you guessed it, Boulder, Colorado. According to the Trucordia news release, Boulder Insurance targets "small- to mid-sized businesses." Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
  • Additionally, Trucordia has acquired the insurance business of Rusty Healy Insurance Agency in Madison, Mississippi. According to the acquisition news release, "... Rusty Healy ... offers auto, home, business and life insurance solutions." Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
  • Trucordia also announced that it acquired the insurance business of a third brokerage in January, namely CADA Insurance Services of Kenner, Louisiana. According to the Trucordia news release, "... CADA ... offers auto, home, commercial, general liability and workers' compensation solutions." Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
  • American Fork, Utah-based KT Tape has been acquired by Chattanooga, Tennessee-based Bridges Consumer Healthcare. According to the acquisition news release, KT Tape is "... the leading kinesiology tape brand designed to provide drug-free pain relief and support for muscles, tendons and ligaments." Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
  • Lehi-based Amplēo has acquired Dallas, Texas-based Peisner Johnson. According to the acquisition news release, "... Peisner Johnson will be rebranded as The Sales Tax People at Amplēo, integrating its specialized expertise into Amplēo's existing suite of fractional executive services." Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
  • Lehi-based ClientSuccess has acquired San Mateo, California-based ProductSuccess. According to the acquisition news release, "... ProductSignals is "... a cutting-edge platform for product feedback and feature request management." Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
  • Lehi-based Amplēo has acquired Stage Marketing from Salt Lake City-based Fullcast. According to the Amplēo news release, the "... acquisition expands Amplēo's offerings beyond fractional CMO leadership to fully integrated fractional marketing teams that deliver both strategy and execution." Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
  • Salt Lake City-based Frazil has acquired Houston, Texas-based Trident Beverage. According to the acquisition news release, Trident is "... a trusted provider of 100% juice slush for K-12 schools." According to the Trident website, the company "... service(s) thousands of schools, day cares, restaurants, bars and other food venues throughout the United States." Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
  • Lindon-based Covr has acquired Fort Worth, Texas-based Data IQ. According to the acquisition news release, with the acquisition Covr "... become(s) the only scheduling system incorporating EMR, payroll, and accounting integrations (in the long-term care marketplace)." Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

News re. Executive Changes

  • Effective 01 February 2025, Howard Hochhauser became the President and Chief Executive Officer of Lehi, Utah-based Ancestry.com. According to the company news release, Hochhauser replaces Deb Liu who served as President and CEO since March 2021. Not counting a nine-month stint as Ancestry's Interim CEO from September 2017 through April 2018, Hochhauser has been the company's Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer since January 2009. Majority ownership of Ancestry was acquired by Blackstone Group for $4.7 billion in December 2020.
  • Midvale, Utah-based Savage Companies, a nearly 80-year-old supply chain and logistics company, has promoted Jeff Roberts to the position of Chief Executive Officer, replacing Kirk Aubry (who has retired). According to the company announcement, Roberts joined Savage in June 2024 when he was named the company's President and Chief Operations Officer. Roberts will maintain his position as President with the 4,000-person firm, while also joining the Savage Board of Directors.

Salt Lake City, Utah-based Zartico has made three executive changes. Specifically,

  • Salt Lake City-based 47G Utah Aerospace & Defense has named Kori Ann Edwards as its Chief Strategy Officer. As noted in the 47G news release, Edwards joins the nonprofit from the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (GOEO) where she served as its Managing Director of Strategic Initiatives, and "... she developed the soon-to-be-released Gameplan 2034, the State of Utah’s economic vision for the 2034 Winter Olympic Games." 
  • Sandy, Utah-based 401GO has hired Stan Smith as its Chief Growth Officer. As noted in the company news release, Smith will lead a sales team while also "... help(ing) 401GO diversify its revenue streams through the development of additional products tailored to several underserved markets." Among his accomplishments during his career, Smith helped Fidelity Investments grow a business line to $34 billion in Assets Under Administration, up from $8 billion during a five-year period.
  • West Valley City, Utah-based Scientia Vascular has made two significant executive changes. As noted in its news release, John Lippert (its Founder and CEO) has stepped down from his role as Chief Executive to become the company's Chief Technology Officer. Concurrently, Scientia has hired Rick Randall as its CEO; he will also become the company's Chairman of the Board. Scientia has raised a total of $89 million in equity and debt financing and has received marketing clearance for several of its neurovascular catheters from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
  • Orem, Utah-based Troomi Wireless has hired Tyler Leishman, MHA as its Chief Strategy Officer. According to the Troomi news release, "... Leishman currently serves as Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer and Interim Chief Operating Officer at Riley Children’s Health, where he leads strategic and operational initiatives to address pediatric healthcare challenges, including mental and behavioral health."
  • South Jordan, Utah-based Ivanti has hired Karl Triebes, as Chief Product Officer. According to the company news release, Triebes "... joins Ivanti with over 30 years of extensive experience in technology leadership and product development ..." including senior executive roles with such firms as F5, Amazon Web Services and Imperva.
  • Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Health has promoted Cara Camiolo, MD to Chief Quality and Safety Officer from her prior position as Chief Medical Officer for Intermountain's Desert Region. According to the Intermountain news release, "... Dr. Camiolo will lead Intermountain Health’s Clinical Excellence team to further enhance a centrally led, locally deployed model, meeting the needs of local facilities, markets, regions, and the enterprise, while advancing proactive care across the Intermountain Health system." Intermountain currently has facilities in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming.
  • Lehi-based LifeVantage (NASDAQ:LFVN) has hired Todd Thompson as Chief Information and Innovation Officer. According to the company news release, Thompson has "... held senior leadership roles as Chief Information Officer at JetBlue Airways, Starwood Hotels, Vivint, and dōTERRA."
  • Salt Lake City-based Utah First Credit Union has hired Chad Dilley as its Chief Operating Officer. According to the company news release, Dilley joins Utah First from Zions Bank where he "... served as Senior Vice President and Director of Retail Branch Banking (and oversaw) a division of 125+ branches across Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming."
  • Lehi-based DigiCert has hired two new Group Vice Presidents, specifically
    — Paul Holt as EMEA Group Vice President, and
    — James Cook as APAC Group Vice President.
    According to the DigiCert news release, Holt joins the company from Venafi, where he served as Vice President of Sales, covering both the EMEA and APAC markets, while Cook "... served as Vice President of Sales for APAC at Entrust and as Regional Sales Director for Australia and New Zealand."
  • St. George, Utah-based Vasion has hired Bob Pritchard as its Chief Revenue Officer and President Global Sales. According to the company news release, Pritchard has "... join(ed) Vasion from M-Files, where he served as Chief Revenue Officer during his three-year tenure." Launched as a print automation firm, Vasion has a cloud-native SaaS solution for intuitive orchestrated automation.

In Summary

In summary, there were seven announcements from Lehi-based organizations that issued separate news releases that made the January 2025 list of News Nuggets, while six announcements made the list from Salt Lake City-based organizations.

Conversely, there were four announcements from Lindon-based organizations that made January's list of News Nuggets.

Last of all, other News Nugget-worthy announcements in January came from

  • Two organizations in Sandy and South Jordan (at two organizations each), while
  • Single organizations made News Nugget-worthy announcements in January in each of the following Utah cities:
    — American Fork,
    — Bluffdale,
    — Midvale,
    — Orem,
    — St. George, and
    — West Valley City.

That said, please keep an eye out for our list of February 2025 News Nuggets roughly one month from now.

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