Greenphire Closes Series A Financing Led by FirstMark Capital

Sept. 15, 2011 - PRLog -- All of Greenphire’s existing angel investors, including leading healthcare industry veterans and entrepreneurs, participated in the funding.  Gerald A. Poch, a Founder and Managing Director at FirstMark Capital, will join Greenphire’s Board of Directors alongside the company’s existing Directors—CEO Samuel Whitaker, Dr. Neil Rotherham, and David Reuter—as part of the financing.  The Series A funding will support the recent launch of Greenphire’s innovative eClinicalGPS technology, a clinical payment platform designed to automate site and vendor payments within the clinical research environment.  Additionally, the capital will be used to expand global sales and marketing initiatives for Greenphire’s flagship technology platform, the ClinCard System, which currently hosts a client base of more than 140 clinical trials sponsors, research sites, contract research organizations and research universities.

Gerald A. Poch stated, “Greenphire’s strong management team, established track record with existing, top-tier clients, and the accelerated adoption of the company’s new eClinicalGPS technology were critical to our investment decision.  FirstMark is excited to have the opportunity to build upon the existing success achieved by the Greenphire team.  This investment represents a unique opportunity to take advantage of internet and payment-processing technologies to provide the healthcare industry with a real-time, secure, and regulatory-compliant payment and communications network.”

Dr. Neil Rotherham, co-founder of ClinPhone and the Executive Director of Greenphire’s board since 2009, also offered his perspective on the deal, stating, “We are delighted to have Jerry Poch and his FirstMark team on board.  Greenphire is a very exciting business with a tremendous future and it is good to see this endorsed by such an experienced investor.  We will be looking to drive the business forward in the coming months with further development of our products and the strengthening of our commercial and project management teams.”

Greenphire co-founder and CEO Samuel Whitaker expressed his enthusiasm with the infusion of growth capital, commenting, "Our company has recognized phenomenal growth in an industry that is notorious for slow adoption of new technology. Our clients continue to rave about our technology platforms and the corresponding support that is provided throughout each study. Our partnership with FirstMark and the growth capital that has been provided by all of our investors will give us the fuel to expand our team and continue to improve operations, support and product functionality.”

About Greenphire’s ClinCard System:
Greenphire’s ClinCard System is a web-based platform enabling pharmaceutical sponsors, CROs, research universities, and clinical research sites to manage global subject payments, and use text, email, and voice messaging programs to communicate with subjects throughout the clinical trials experience. The ClinCard System is currently supporting over 8,000 studies and 60,000 patients across 1,500 clinical research sites in North America and Europe.

About Greenphire’s eClinicalGPS Technology:
The eClinicalGPS technology allows pharmaceutical sponsors to manage and automate all investigator, site, and vendor payments associated with a clinical study from a single web-based portal, replacing traditional manual payment processes and drastically reducing administrative burden.

About Greenphire:
Greenphire’s clinical payment and communication solutions take a patient-centric and site-centric approach to driving data integrity and data completeness for sponsors, CROs, research universities, and clinical research sites. Greenphire’s web-based technologies are designed to improve the clinical experience for patients and sites, drive positive patient behavior, increase patient retention and compliance, significantly reduce site and study team administration associated with payment management, and manage regulatory risk associated with both patient payments and the Sunshine Act.  Learn more about Greenphire’s innovative clinical solutions at www.greenphire.com.

About FirstMark Capital:
Based in New York City, FirstMark Capital invests in ground-breaking companies that are creating new markets with innovative technology solutions or fundamentally changing existing markets by applying a fresh approach and new business model. A venture leader with more than $2 billion in capital commitments, FirstMark's team of investment and operations professionals have decades of real-world experience and leadership in core technology markets, making the firm uniquely qualified to offer industry insight, relationships and the operational expertise to build lasting businesses. Select historical investments include: Riot Games (Acquired by Tencent Holdings); Duck Creek Technologies (Acquired by Accenture); Netgear ; Boomi (Acquired by Dell); First Advantage (Acquired by First American Corporation); StubHub (Acquired by eBay); Netegrity (Acquired by CA); Flarion (Acquired by Qualcomm); OutlookSoft (Acquired by SAP); Vallent (Acquired by IBM); and Navic Networks (Acquired by Microsoft).  Current investments include: SecondMarket, Knewton, Pinterest, Lumos Labs, OpenGamma, Shopify and HealthPlanOne.  For more information, please visit:
www.firstmarkcap.com.