Orange County-based healthcare industry veteran Jeff Margolis has taken on the chief executive’s role at a Colorado medical software startup.
Denver-based Welltok Inc. counts a company Margolis founded and sold, as well as a couple of OC venture capital firms, among its backers.
Margolis took the chief executive’s role at the “early stage” healthcare software specialist last week. His appointment came as the company, which was founded in 2009, wrapped up an $18.7 million funding round that included Laguna Beach-based Okapi Venture Capital LLC and Miramar Venture Partners in Corona del Mar. New Enterprise Associates Inc. and InterWest Partners, both in Menlo Park, and San Mateo-based Emergence Capital Partners also participated.
Margolis said he will continue to work from Newport Beach, where he keeps an office.
He remains chairman emeritus of healthcare software company TriZetto Group Inc., which he started in Newport Beach in 1997. TriZetto had more than $450 million in annual revenue before it went private in 2008 in a $1.4 billion buyout by New York-based private equity firm Apax Partners Inc.
TriZetto moved to Denver, where he had prior roots, in 2010. It now has about 3,400 employees spread across nine U.S. offices and three in India. It notched $518 million in revenue in 2010, the latest figure available.
Margolis has been with Welltok since 2010, when he was named chairman shortly after the sale of TriZetto.
He later became executive chairman and got “involved in more of the actual business of the company, setting more of the strategy.”
“In a lot of ways I was perhaps playing that CEO role,” he said.
Welltok has 28 employees at its single location in Denver and operates through its Caféwell brand. The program allows participants to access health information and fitness challenges, along with rewards and incentives to encourage a healthy lifestyle.
“It’s in revenue stage,” Margolis said. “We’re fortunate to already have customers that have paid for sponsored memberships—over 10 million consumers.”
Margolis maintains an advisory relationship with TriZetto, an early investor in Welltok. His title of chairman emeritus comes without “formal ties to the company other than I retain a significant investment stake,” he said.
He counts numerous business and civic ties in Orange County, including Margolis Enterprises LLC and “other private-company investments,” he said.
Margolis serves on the boards of Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. He co-chairs the Rose Project Leadership Counsel for the Jewish Federation & Family Services and serves on the advisory board of University of California, Irvine’s Center for Healthcare Management & Policy.
“I’m lucky being in healthcare and healthcare IT, where I can be part of enterprises that can create value for shareholders … and make people’s lives better every day,” Margolis said. “It’s also helping to save money in the total healthcare system, which is arguably one of the biggest challenges facing us.”
