Indy-based software firm receives massive $120M investment to foster growth

Indianapolis-based Greenlight Guru has received a massive cash infusion—more than $120 million from investment firm JMI Equity—to accelerate the development and expansion of its software platform that helps medical device firms bring products to market faster.

The investment dwarfs any venture deal involving an Indiana company in all of 2020, according to data collected by Elevate Ventures. It’s nearly three times the largest investment last year in any company with a majority of its operations in Indiana.

The Greenlight Guru announcement comes five months after the company introduced its new product Halo, which uses artificial intelligence to make recommendations related to the quality of medical devices.

JMI, which has offices in Baltimore and San Diego, is an equity firm that focuses on helping software companies grow.

Greenlight Guru CEO David DeRam said in a statement that it “chose JMI Equity as a strategic partner because they are experts at achieving growth by putting the customer first.”

“We’ve been extremely deliberate when taking on investment because we wanted to ensure we found the right partner for us and our customers,” he said. “This partnership will allow us to accelerate the value we provide to our customers as we remain committed to helping medical device companies get their life-changing products to patients and achieve our mission of improving the quality of life.”

Greenlight Guru, founded in 2013, has been growing quickly of late, fueled by what it called unprecedented demand over the past year. It has more than 500 medical device customers across the world.

The company has 136 employees, including more than 100 employees in Indiana and more than 30 who are fully remote. Since March 2020, the company has hired 85 employees with plans to add 35 or so employees yet this year. The company plans to increase its workforce by another 50% or so by the end of 2022, a spokeswoman said.

In 2017, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered Greenlight Guru $1.55 million in conditional tax credits and up to $200,000 in training grants to expand to 130 jobs by the end of 2020.]

The company is hiring in sales, marketing, operations and engineering.

Brian Hersman, a general partner at JMI Equity, said in a statement that Greenlight Guru has an “impressive growth trajectory.”

He said its software platform is “purpose-built to meet the needs of its customers in the medical device industry, helping them navigate an increasingly complex regulatory environment and manage risks across the entire product lifecycle.”

DeRam co-founded Greenlight Guru with Jon Speer and David Odmark using $2.25 million from angel investors and investments from the company’s founders.

Correction: The original story failed to list David Odmark as a co-founder of Greenlight Guru.