Convercent has grown from 34 employees to 60 in 2013, with plans to make at least 10 more hires by year's end.
CEO Patrick Quinlan, Chief Product Officer Philip Winterburn and COO Barclay Friesen left Rivet Software in late 2011. Explains Quinlan: "We wanted to build an explosive, successful company -- but we wanted to do it a second time."
They didn't start completely from scratch, acquiring Business Controls, a 14-employee compliance technology firm based in the Denver Tech Center, in spring 2012. "It had gotten to about $3 million in revenue, but never gotten to its J curve," says Quinlan of Business Controls. About 20 employees immediately came over from Rivet to boost the staff to more than 30.
While maintaining existing clients, Quinlan and company went to work developing the next-generation platform for compliance. "We got to build the company behind the curtain for nine months," he says. In January, they rebranded the company as Convercent, closed on a Series A round of $10.2 million and moved to Denver proper.
The resulting product integrates policy risk software, online learning, compliance software intake and "values management," says Quinlan. Clients include Level 3 and Owens & Minor, and the current push is to migrate the company's 380 Business Controls-era clients over from Business Controls' legacy product to the Convercent platform.
"The biggest challenge with the compliance industry is it's about problems that have already happened," he says. "What everybody wants is a tool that gets in front of problems. You can start to get predictive."
The company's Golden Triangle offices are in the midst of a major renovation: The former car dealership from the 1930s that sat vacant for six years is being reinvented as a cutting-edge workspace. The project is slated to be complete in July.
"The technology space in Colorado is on the front end of an awesome, awesome run," adds Quinlan. "We're ready for a comeback."
Contact Confluence Denver Innovation & Jobs News Editor Eric Peterson with tips and leads for future stories at eric@confluence-denver.com.
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