Aug 12, 2020

Seattle Art Museum

Frank

Seattle Art Museum appointed Priya Frank as director of equity, diversity and inclusion, a new position on the museum's executive team. Frank has been at SAM since 2016 as associate director of community programs in the Education department, and is the founding chair of the staff-led equity team. In her new role, she is helping shape SAM's priorities, partnerships, communications strategies and audience-engagement efforts to build an equitable, diverse and inclusive museum.

Avalara

Seattle-based business tax software developer Avalara hired tax technology and consulting veteran Jayme Fishman as executive vice president of corporate development. Fishman was president of the software division at global tax services firm Ryan. Prior to that, he was senior vice president of sales, marketing and professional services at Taxware. At Avalara, he is overseeing the company's mergers and acquisitions strategy, and managing the acquisitions process from due diligence through integration.

Marchex

Seattle-based mobile advertising analytics company Marchex said it plans to buy up to 10 million shares of its Class B common stock in a joint tender offer with Edenbrook Capital. The first 6 million shares would be bought for $1.80 each, while the remaining 4 million shares would be bought for $1.96 each. The offer is expected to expire in early October, unless extended. If it is fully subscribed, Marchex and Edenbrook will have purchased about 25% of the outstanding Class B stock.

Vesta

Singapore-based EDBI invested in Lake Oswego, Oregon-based fintech company Vesta. This investment, along with a strategic alignment with EDBI, will accelerate Vesta's expansion of its fraud detection and e-commerce payment platform across Asia Pacific. As part of the deal, Vesta will open a regional headquarters in Singapore. Financial details were not disclosed.

Saykara

Health care news publisher FierceHealthcare named Seattle-based startup Saykara as a finalist for the Fierce Innovation Award: Healthcare Edition 2020. Saykara was nominated in the Digital/Mobile Health Solutions category for its artificial intelligence-powered assistant for physicians called Kara. The voice-enabled mobile app “listens” as doctors converse with their patients and then transfers the salient content into patients' electronic health records.

Aug 11, 2020

The Standard

McKinstry

Roden

Portland-based Standard Insurance Co. (The Standard) named Cherri Roden assistant vice president of application and solution delivery, and Nathan McKinstry assistant vice president of IT architecture and engineering. Roden was second vice president of product management and agility, leading the product management team for the Employee Benefits division, as well as the Agility line of business. She joined the company in 2009. McKinstry was senior director in IT solutions delivery, leading the Employee Benefits application development teams and helping develop the company's employee benefits strategy. He has been with the company since 2006.

Fortive

Everett-based Fortive added Sharmistha Dubey to its board. Dubey is CEO and director of Match Group, overseeing growth for its portfolio of brands including Tinder, Match, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, Pairs, PlentyOfFish and OurTime. Fortive is a diversified industrial technology growth company.

Cancer Targeted Technology

The National Institutes of Health awarded $1.44 million to Seattle-based Cancer Targeted Technology to support its ongoing clinical trial of a new prostate cancer drug. The money makes up the second year of a three-year grant totaling $3.3 million. Cancer Targeted Technology is privately held.

T-Mobile

In Bellevue, T-Mobile closed a $2.03 billion subscription rights offering of 19.75 million shares at $103 per share. T-Mobile used the proceeds to repurchase an equivalent amount of outstanding shares of its common stock issued from a subsidiary of SoftBank. The offering did not involve a gain or loss to T-Mobile and did not affect the number of outstanding shares of T-Mobile common stock or its capitalization.

POSaBIT

Seattle-based POSaBIT says it will provide its point-of-sale system to 10 Bud Hut marijuana stores in Washington state. Bud Hut initially used the system in its Vancouver store. POSaBIT is a fintech company focused on point-of-sale systems for cash-only businesses.