Healthquest acquisition signals another successful tech exit in Edmonton
The recent WELLSTAR acquisition of software company Healthquest follows in the footsteps of other local tech exits, including WinTax and Granify, as it is not a simple financial transaction but instead a move aimed to extend the company's reach.
"Now we've got a national presence with a publicly backed company," Healthquest's president, Brandon Blanck, told Taproot. "Hopefully (we can leverage that) moving forward to grow even further, to get ourselves into other provinces, and truly start making a difference in healthcare — not just in Alberta, but across the whole country."
Healthquest is the name for both a software suite and what the company, originally incorporated as Microquest, is now best known as. The software-as-a-service company was founded by Mike Barth in Edmonton in 1993. The company began by offering billing software but today has a suite of tools that allow health clinics and practitioners to digitize records and perform tasks like appointment scheduling. These tools are used by more than 800 clinics and 3,500 practitioners in Alberta.
Despite the sale, Blanck said he intends to stay with Healthquest and continue the company's mission, which is to allow healthcare workers to focus on care.
Blanck said he could not disclose the financial details of the acquisition due to regulations related to WELLSTAR's publicly traded parent company, Vancouver-based WELL Health Technologies Corp. However, he confirmed that Healthquest is one of the two acquired companies mentioned in a WELL press release. That release details a cumulative "$17.9 million in cash and $3.9 million in WELLSTAR subordinate voting shares" as components of the deals.
"Any of the other competitors likely would have bought us simply to absorb us — buy our clients, essentially," Blanck said. "That was not the case with WELL, and that was one of the things that was absolutely the most appealing (about the acquisition)."
The acquisition comes after some levelling up from Blanck, who succeeded Barth as the company's leader in 2023. Three years ago, Blanck began participating in ThresholdImpact Venture Mentoring Service at his alma mater, the University of Alberta. In 2023, he then enrolled in the GrowthX accelerator with Alberta Innovates. Blanck was mentored by Kristina Milke, a general partner at Sprout Fund, which invests in seed-stage tech companies in Western Canada. Blanck credits Milke's "no BS" style with being "invaluable" to the company.
Milke, who later joined Healthquest's advisory group, said she loved how coachable and willing Blanck was in the GrowthX program. "He was there because he really wanted to get as much as he could out of the program," she told Taproot. "He was very open to difficult questions … I love working with founders like that. To me, that is gold."
Milke said she wants to see more positive stories about tech successes in Edmonton, and that exits like Healthquest's are difficult but possible. She's seen it firsthand, too: EZ Ops, a company that Sprout has invested in, was acquired last year by Detechtion Technologies, and Milke was an investor in Granify before its acquisition by Bazaarvoice in 2023.
"You can do this here," she said. "This is a place where you can build a company, you can find the talent, you have access to customers, and you have an opportunity for an exit when it makes sense."
