Briefcase – Oct. 31, 2014

CLOSINGS

Choice City Electric, an electrical contractor operating in the Fort Collins area since 1984, shuttered its operations Oct. 10. Environmental Systems Inc., doing business as Choice City Electric, in a letter sent to creditors through its law firm, said it is in the process of dissolving and liquidating assets to pay as many outstanding debts as possible.

CONTRACTS

Multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis has taken an equity position in Boulder-based biotech firm SomaLogic Inc. as the two extended their multi-year research agreement.

Neither the financial terms of the deal nor the size of the equity stake were disclosed. The agreement is an extension and expansion of one the two companies inked in 2011 for SomaLogic to build a version of its SOMAscan proteomics assay that Novartis could use for its drug discovery and development efforts.

Bulb, a Fort Collins-based software startup, partnered with the Eanes Independent School District in Travis County, Texas, to pilot its first major digital portfolio product.

DEADLINES

Colorado-based startup ventures or businesses that have begun business development, market research, product development and may have generated some revenue have until Dec. 1 to apply for a competition hosted by the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. UNC is encouraging aspiring entrepreneurs to come forth with an idea for a new business venture. Applicants will have the opportunity to compete for $50,000 in prize money at the sixth annual Entrepreneurial Challenge. The first-place winner will receive $25,000, second-place $15,000 and third-place $10,000. Winners also will receive business incubator services from the UNC BizHub Collaborative, the school’s business incubator. More information is online at mcb.unco.edu/Events/E-challenge/.

EARNINGS

Oilfield-services company Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) posted $1.2 billion in net income during the third quarter vs. $706 million during the same quarter last year. Halliburton, which has a facility in Fort Lupton and which employs more than 80,000 employees worldwide, performs hydraulic fracturing for oil companies in Weld County and elsewhere. Halliburton posted $8.7 billion in revenue during the third quarter compared with $7.5 billion during the same quarter last year.

KUDOS

Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins was one of just six hospitals in Colorado granted a 2014-15 Consumer Choice Award from National Research Corp. for providing the highest-quality care. A total of 273 hospitals nationwide were recognized.

Scott Ehrlich, owner of Ehrlich Toyota & Scion in Greeley, was nominated for the 2015 TIME Dealer of the Year award, sponsored by Time magazine in cooperation with the National Automobile Dealers Association.

Eight Lafayette businesses were presented with awards at the Oct. 21 City Council meeting to recognize their efforts towards becoming more sustainable. The City of Lafayette Energy Sustainability Advisory Committee established the Lafayette Green Business Program in 2011 to recognize local businesses that meet requirements in six categories; energy, zero waste, water, transportation, community, and health and wellness. Receiving Gold Level awards were Jax Outdoor Gear, Living Design Studios and Lafayette, Ryan and Pioneer elementary schools. Silver Level Awards went to Barnes Electrical, Cairn Christian Church and Sister Carmen Community Center.

Bellvue-based Noosa Finest Yoghurt won two awards in the recent World Dairy Expo Championship Dairy Product Contest in Madison, Wis. The awards recognized two of Noosa’s most recently released flavors, coconut and pineapple. The pumpkin flavor recently won the World Dairy Innovation Award, and its coconut is a 2014 Editor’s Pick from industry publication Progressive Grocer. Koel Thomae, Noosa co-founder, recently accepted the Best Young Business award from Naturally Boulder on behalf of the company.

Fort Collins-based Advanced Media Services, a full-service video production and media marketing studio, was named Best of Industry by Company Week for Media/Software companies. The recognition comes after the company partnered with Way to Grow, a locally owned agricultural supply company, to produce a video highlighting local nonprofit and for-profit organizations supporting urban farming development in Colorado.

Rob Mygatt, a broker associate and partner with The Group Inc. Real Estate in Northern Colorado, was named a 2014 Denver Five Star Real Estate Agent for delivering outstanding service and client satisfaction. Also receiving Five Star recognition were the following Re/Max Alliance agents: Jeff Gazaway, Bob Gordon, Peggy Reed, Ron Smaron, Rene Vellinga, Warren Williams, Carl Worthington, Jr., Jamie Zimmerman, Jennifer Egbert, Dunbar Hardy, Lenny Maiocco, Dave Naber, Katie Patterson, Tom Precourt and Roger Walker in Boulder; Heather Brandt, Erik Ingvaldsen, Tom Pringle and Catherine Wood in Longmont; and Heather Gray in the Nederland office. Minneapolis-based Five Star Professional surveyed residents who purchased a home priced at more than $150,000 within a six-month period (June to December 2013).  The final list is a select group representing less than 7 percent of real estate agents in the Denver area.

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Comprehensive Risk Services LLC, a Phoenix-based emergency restoration firm with operations in Greeley, acquired the assets of Denver-based COCAT Restoration & Reconstruction LLC. Financial terms of the deal between the privately held companies were not disclosed.

Fort Collins-based Woodward Inc. purchased property it had been leasing at 871 Champion Drive in Windsor, where it operates a testing facility. Woodward (Nasdaq: WWD) paid $3.6 million for the 55,000-square-foot building it has been leasing since 2012 from Southgate Two LLC, an entity of Martin Lind’s Water Valley Land Co. LLC.

NAME CHANGES

Settled into its new Niwot home, Boulder Soup Works rebranded as Boulder Organic! as it prepares to expand into foods other than soup. Boulder Organic!, founded in 2006, has specialized in certified organic, non-GMO verified and certified gluten-free soups.

OPENINGS

MergeLane, located at Galvanize, 1035 Pearl St. fifth floor. In Boulder and founded by angel investors Sue Heilbronner and Elizabeth Kraus, aims to bring more women into the startup community and generate returns for investors through the acceleration of high-growth, gender-diverse companies. For its first 12-week program beginning in February, MergeLane will accept eight companies. It offers a guaranteed investment of $20,000 per participating company with up to $100,000 of discretionary investment upon completion of the program. MergeLane, which takes a 6 percent equity stake in the chosen companies, MergeLane is accepting applications through Dec. 1. Applicants must have a business with some evidence of traction and a proven or implied ability to scale.

Great Western Bank will enter the Greeley market in November when it opens a branch bank on the ground floor of the Lundvall Building at 2015 Clubhouse Drive. Great Western has branches in Boulder, Fort Collins, Longmont, Loveland, Broomfield, Lafayette and Erie.

Fort Collins’ baking ingredients manufacturer Rodelle, Inc. opened its new production facility, after a 32,000 square foot expansion. Rodelle, which has 67 employees, has been producing vanilla extract, baking essentials and spice blends and distributing them globally for more than 30 years.

Boulder-based Snarf’s sandwich-shop chain will add a store at 6560 Lookout Road in Gunbarrel and another at a to-be-determined site in south Boulder by early 2015. Denver is to see its fifth Snarf’s open in the Highlands neighborhood around mid-November, and two new shops are expected to open in Chicago by the end of the year. Snarf’s has 10 shops open in Colorado now, including two in Boulder and two in Longmont, as well as two in Chicago (in addition to the two coming), three in St. Louis and one in Austin, Texas.

Pediatric Urgent Care of Northern Colorado will officially open the only pediatric-specific urgent-care facility in Northern Colorado on Jan. 5, seeing patients at 1214 Oak Park Drive in Fort Collins. While initially leasing space from The Youth Clinic’s South Fort Collins location, PUNC is in the process of buying land to build its own stand-alone facility.

PRODUCT UPDATE

The culture-management software platform from Boulder-based RoundPegg now is available in  German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, and mainland and Taiwanese Chinese languages as well as English.

Boulder-based FreeWave Technologies Inc., a provider of industrial, secure Machine to Machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) wireless networking solutions, released the WaveContact product family, which expands FreeWave’s wireless I/O solutions for industrial M2M and IoT applications in remote hazardous locations. WaveContact extends reliable connectivity to sensor networks across wide areas and simplifies the M2M network setup for the oil and gas, factory automation, industrial control, water/wastewater, smart grid, government and defense and agriculture industries.

Longmont-based Dot Hill Systems Corp. (Nasdaq:HILL), a supplier of enterprise-class storage systems, announced a patented technology designed to more efficiently eject drive carriers in certain AssuredSAN storage system chassis. Using a “flat” spring design, the mechanical invention takes less space than traditional coiled springs; that space can be used to design a shallower chassis depth, or to allow more length for storage controller modules and power supplies.

SERVICES

Fort Collins-based Innosphere is working with six Canadian clean-tech companies as part of the incubator’s relationship with Denver’s Canadian Technology Accelerator. This is the third cohort of Canadian startups Innosphere has worked with through the partnership. The six Canadian companies participating in the CTA group include: Airex Energy, Aurora Control Technologies, Gas Plume Imaging, PCS Technologies, PowerDisc and Solaris.

The city of Longmont unveiled branding for its new municipal broadband Internet service and announced that about 500 potential customers will be in the first wave able to sign up for the service beginning Nov. 3. The city is dubbing the service NextLight in homage to the city’s century-long history of providing electric light as well as its new efforts to provide the “next light” through fiber optics. The service is rolling out in six phases, with plans to have it available to all residents and businesses in Longmont by 2017. Residents and businesses interested in the service can find more information at www.longmontcolorado.gov/nextlight.

Zayo Group LLC is adding 93 miles to its high-speed fiber network that runs throughout the Boulder area. Boulder-based Zayo (NYSE: ZAYO) serves customers in Boulder that require high-bandwidth network connectivity, including startups, Internet content and cloud-computing service providers, as well as educational institutions. When the expansion project is complete, it will connect to Zayo’s existing 800-mile Front Range fiber network and will be used to provide customers access to Zayo’s full suite of services including Ethernet, wavelengths, IP, video transport and dark fiber.

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