Our Portfolio
LFE Capital Fund I Portfolio Companies
API Outsourcing
API Outsourcing is a leading business process outsourcing provider to Fortune 1000 companies. Founded in 1998, API provides state-of-the-art billing and accounts payable automation solutions. The process uses API's proprietary database technology to parse the customer's data and provide information in a designated format - print, email, e-bill and EDI - to complete transactions. Because all transactions are converted to one common electronic format and stored, all information is instantly available to authorized personnel and customers via the Internet, intranet, or extranet.
Gary Halleen, President and CEO, has 30 years of experience in information automation, including data processing, data communication, information management, document management, and imaging systems. He founded, and later sold, ComSquared Systems. In May 2004 he won the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the Minnesota and Dakotas region.
M.A. Gedney
M.A. Gedney, founded in 1881, is a Minnesota-based manufacturer of premium branded pickles and relish. The company also produces a line of sauces and dressings and is a contract manufacturer for private label and national brands. Gedney markets its products to over 200 retail customers and 10 nationally branded and private label customers. Gedney is the branded pickle leader in the Midwest with a 65% market share.
CEO Chuck Weil has extensive consumer foods experience. He was President and Chief Operating Officer of ConAgra Frozen Foods, and Vice President and General Manager of Friskies Petcare Group at Nestlé. He also held numerous management positions at General Mills, including President of Yoplait.
SimonDelivers
SimonDelivers
offers the premier online grocery shopping experience in the greater Twin
Cities area. Customers order farm-fresh produce, restaurant-packaged meats,
fresh baked goods, grocery household products, plus a hand-picked selection
of wine, beer and spirits on www.simondelivers.com
and groceries are delivered at a specified time to their home. SimonDelivers
targets the busy family by offering shopping services at comparable prices
to local retailers.
Liwanag Ojala, the President of Simon Delivers since 2006, joined the company in 2004 as its General Counsel and Human Resource Director. From 2000-2003 Ms. Ojala was legal counsel at Nash Finch, and prior to that was an attorney at Briggs and Morgan in the business law department.
Coolibar
Coolibar was founded in 2002 to bring Australia’s world-leading approaches
to sun protection to the American market. The company, based in Minnesota,
manufactures sun-protective clothing which is sold via catalog and its
website (http://www.coolibar.com/).
The company has extensively redesigned Australian sun protective clothing
styles to meet the tastes and needs of fashion- and health-conscious Americans.
Coolibar’s specially designed and treated clothing is a simple foundation
for guaranteed protection from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. Coolibar
is the only clothing company to be awarded the Skin Cancer Foundation
Seal of Recommendation.
Coolibar President John Barrow is a native of Australia. Barrow previously co-founded J3 Learning Corporation, which was acquired by GartnerGroup, and served as Vice President of Strategic Projects for techies.com. He also worked for McKinsey & Co. as a consultant.
Coolibar is an Australian eucalyptus tree that provides protection from the sun in the Australian outback.
Inlet Medical
Inlet Medical develops and markets laparoscopic procedures and devices for pelvic reconstructive surgery in women. Its products include the Elevest procedure kit, to facilitate uterine prolapse repair, and the Avesta procedure kit, for uterosacral support after a hysterectomy. The Metra kit and Uplift procedure treat conditions related to a retroverted uterus. A fourth product, the Inlet CloseSure procedure kit, is considered one of the best trocar wound closure devices for full thickness wounds.
Lee Jones, CEO and President, has over 20 years' general management and technical leadership experience. Prior to joining Inlet, she spent 14 years at Medtronic, where she held technical and operational positions, primarily in the venture start-up area.
Inlet was sold in October 2005 to CooperSurgical.
Halo Innovations
Halo Innovations was founded in 1994 to develop and market consumer products that provide a healthy and safe sleep environment. In 2000, Halo introduced the Halo SleepSack, a wearable blanket for infants and the only product ever endorsed by the National SIDS Alliance, which offers a safer sleep environment for infants by eliminating the need for traditional baby blankets and bedding, which can bunch up over the infant’s mouth and lead to suffocation. The company also owns a patented technology that creates purified air in the immediate crib environment. The company is now launching an application of this technology, the PureNight Pure Air Sleep System, for allergy and asthma sufferers, both juveniles and adults, providing a 99% elimination of airborne allergens in the “sleep zone” improving sleep quality and symptom relief.
Chuck Dorsey is President and CEO of Halo. He joined Halo in June of 2003 with over 25 years of consumer goods experience in marketing and general management. He previously served as President of Select Comfort Direct. He created and executed the direct response marketing strategy of Select Comfort, helping to grow sales from $700K when he joined to $274M when he left. He also served as CEO of Ergomedics, Inc. and Chief Operating Officer of Asset Marketing Services.
Gentra Systems
Gentra Systems is a life science tools company focusing on DNA and RNA
purification chemistries and instruments. Gentra's reagent products purify
and prepare DNA and RNA samples for downstream processing and testing.
Gentra began operations as a reagent company. Over the years the company
has built a brand around its chemistries highlighting their yield, stability,
and ease of use. Gentra also designed and is selling a high-throughput
processing instrument the Autopure LS. This instrument automates the process
of DNA purification using Gentra's chemistries. Gentra was sold to Qiagen
in May 2006.
Dr. Ruth Shuman founded Gentra Systems in 1988 and has served as its President and CEO since 1990. Prior to Gentra, Dr. Shuman held a post-doctoral research position at the University of North Carolina, and was an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University from 1984 to 1989. Dr. Shuman's area of expertise is genetic engineering. She is listed as co-inventor on several of Gentra's patents. Dr. Shuman holds a B.S. in Animal Science and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Minnesota.
LFE Growth Fund II Portfolio Companies
Avant Healthcare Professionals
Avant Healthcare Professionals provides foreign-trained nurses and physical
therapists on contract assignments with U.S. hospitals. Avant’s
nurses and therapists come to the U.S. from Australia, New Zealand, The
Philippines, United Kingdom, India, China, Kenya, Puerto Rico, Spain and
Canada. These healthcare professionals fill a large and growing shortage
in the U.S. market. Avant has become recognized in the industry for its
unique transition training and clinical support programs, and has been
certified by The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
Avant was founded in 2003 by Shari Sandifer, a registered nurse and MBA
who previously served as Vice President of O’Grady Peyton International,
and as President of the International Division of Professional Placement
Resources, both healthcare staffing firms.
JobDig
JobDig publishes free weekly employment newspapers in the central U.S., and operates JobDig.com, a comprehensive site centered around jobs, work, careers, and human capital management. The newspapers feature full color display ads, and both the papers and the website have quality career oriented content. In addition, the company integrates radio and television job advertising with the newspapers, provides private label career micro sites for broadcast media web sites around the county, and operates LinkUp.com, a site that aggregates jobs directly from corporate web sites.
JobDig is led by G.L. Hoffman and Toby Dayton, who both joined the company shortly after its founding in 2000. Hoffman previously started and led Varitronic Systems and Insignia Systems. Dayton worked with early stage companies in strategic initiatives and business development at Cherry Tree.
Global ID Group
Global ID Group provides analytic testing, third-party certification, and consulting services to the agriculture and food industries. The company’s products are used for the testing of food and agricultural products to detect genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and to ensure compliance with national and international government regulations, client and trading partner demands, and consumer information needs. The company was founded in Fairfield, Iowa in 1996 by Dr. John Fagan, who recognized that the food safety and environmental concerns caused by the introduction of GMOs into the food chain would create new markets for foods free of GMO content. Dr. Fagan was a pioneer in the development of GMO detection technologies and non-GMO certification programs. With offices in the U.K., Germany, Brazil, and Japan, Global ID Group is a worldwide leader in the GMO testing industry.
In addition to Dr. Fagan who serves as Chief Technical Officer, the company is led by Kenneth Ross as CEO. Mr. Ross was previously CEO of PackageNet, Inc., a consumer services company serving the supermarket industry that was acquired by Neopost S.A. of France. He also founded Atrium Information Group, an enterprise software company that was acquired by Computer Associates. Ross has served on the boards of Vaytek, Fairfield Software, Technical Advances, Speedsys, Full Partner, and Keyboard Advancements.