Think Research becomes a public corporation

TORONTO – Think Research Corp., which provides digital solutions to health organizations that improve the delivery of care, has gone public with a stock offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange’s Venture Exchange. As well, the company recently acquired a network of seven medical clinics in the Toronto region with a $14.6-million buyout of Toronto’s HealthCarePlus Group of Clinics.

Think Research originally specialized in the creation of order sets, which enabled care-givers at hospital to make use of evidence-based, best practices to optimize patient outcomes and to standardize the delivery of care. The company has since gone on to produce solutions in other areas, as well, including artificial intelligence and telehealth.

According to an article in the Globe and Mail newspaper, Think Research now works with more than 2,800 healthcare facilities across North America. Through the stock offering, the company is valued at close to $180 million.

In filings ahead of the public listing, Think Research said its revenue for its fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2019, the most recent period for which full-year figures were available, was $17.3-million, up 16 percent from the previous year. It lost $13.3-million in fiscal 2019, widening 7 percent from fiscal 2018.

After raising about $50-million on private markets since the company was founded in 2006, Think Research CEO Sachin Aggarwal (pictured) said the company had “hard decisions” last summer about how it would seek its next round of financing, after the massive growth in the digital-health businesses. “Moving to the public markets allows for a different kind of profile, different kind of growth, access to capital,” he said. “It’s an inflection point for healthcare.”

Just a year ago, fast-growing Canadian tech companies were largely turning to private markets to fund their ambitions. But the COVID-19 pandemic has boosted public-market investors’ interest in technologies that will shape the future economy.

Recently, MindBeacon Holdings Inc., a Toronto-based provider of telemedicine for mental healthcare, went public on the TSX.