Fraser Bullock Looks to Mentor and Guide Another Utah Tech Company

We’ll just keep growing at a very rapid rate.

We normally don’t cover stories related to high-profile hirings or a change in a company’s Board of Directors, because, frankly, most of the time we just don’t care. We also only have so much time and resources, so we try to focus the majority of our efforts on writing about Utah startups, founders, and investors.

That said, when Health Catalyst recently announced Fraser Bullock had been elected to serve as Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors, we just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk to one of the most prominent investors in Utah.

This isn’t the first time Bullock has served as Chairman of the Board for a prominent technology company in Utah. He was an early investor in Omniture, and later became Chairman of the Board when the company went public and eventually sold to Adobe for $1.8 billion.

As the Co-founder and Managing Director of Sorenson Capital — an early investor in Health Catalyst — Bullock’s prominent position on the company’s board shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.

“In some respects I’m representing Sorenson Capital’s investment in Health Catalyst, but I’m also just looking forward to helping to mentor and guide another Utah technology company,” Bullock said.

After raising $41 million in a Series C round led by Sequoia Capital earlier this year, Health Catalyst is poised to become a major player in the healthcare analytics and data warehousing space.

“What we focus on is being able to manipulate the data from all of the various data sources in hospital systems to be able to optimize healthcare, both in terms of achieving better outcomes for the patients, and for doing it on a more efficient basis,” Bullock said.

Dan Burton, CEO of Health Catalyst, whom Bullock described as “flourishing” and a “very seasoned, thoughtful leader,” seems to be genuinely excited about the company’s new Chairman.

“He brings a wealth of relevant technology and operating experience to our Board. His experience as a board member or as chairman of other high-growth software companies has already benefited Health Catalyst, and I anticipate that Fraser’s leadership and experience will uniquely contribute to the company’s development during this next chapter of Health Catalyst’s journey,” Burton wrote in a statement the day Bullock’s election was announced.

Health Catalyst is getting a Chairman who has been in the venture capital game for more than three decades. Bullock was one of the founding partners of Bain Capital, a firm founded by Mitt Romney that became infamous during the 2012 presidential election. His close relationship with Romney was pivotal when the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee was looking for a right-hand man to help run the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Romney tapped Bullock to be the COO and CFO of the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee.

“Mitt and I stayed in touch over the years, and when he couldn’t find anybody else to take the job at the Olympics, he offered it to me. I was grateful to do it and we had a great time together,” Bullock said.

Sorenson Capital has been around since 2003. In that time, Bullock estimates the company has invested in 45 companies, and 20 of those companies have been from Utah. “I’d say 40 percent of our investments have been in Utah companies,” Bullock said.

Throughout our admittedly brief conversation it was abundantly clear Bullock is a big believer in Utah and its startup ecosystem.

“The amount of growth and startups that I see is phenomenal and it’s almost mind boggling,” Bullock said. “Every time I turn around there’s another great company that has been founded here in Utah. We look forward to the opportunity to fund a lot of them, once they get it to a sufficient size. We’re a source of capital for these technology companies. We’ve invested in many, many of them. We’re a big supporter of Utah and Utah technology companies.”

As for the future of Health Catalyst?

“We’ll just keep growing at a very rapid rate,” Bullock explained, “with new technology, new products, and we’ve also expanded the sales and marketing efforts to facilitate that growth.”

Published 6/26/2014