EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
BoomerangFX | November 23, 2022
BoomerangFX, a cloud-based, global integrated practice management software, digital marketing, and educational solution provider to the private-pay aesthetic medicine industry, is expanding its reach beyond North America. Having experienced demand for its e-learning solutions across Asia-Pacific and Europe, the company's educational platform, BoomerangFX LEARN, recently surpassed 10,000 participants worldwide.
"We are seeing explosive consumer demand globally for highly effective, non-invasive treatments across all ages and demographics. This trend has driven an unprecedented number of new entrants launching aesthetic medicine practices, including traditional physicians, leaving managed care in droves to enter the lucrative, cash-based "med spa" industry. New non-invasive technologies, like the highly popular radio frequency fractional needle-based Morpheus8, introduced by global medical device leader, InMode Ltd. (Nasdaq: INMD) ("InMode"), have been a worldwide phenomenon and created a whole new category for safe, effective, office-based, and non-invasive treatments for facial and body reshaping."
Jerome Dwight, CEO and Co-Founder of BoomerangFX
The med spa industry continues to grow at double-digit rates and is proving to be recession resilient. With the entrance of 80 million millennials to the already engaged 80 million baby boomers, half of all North American consumers are potential clients for the cosmetic enhancement industry. Recent trends highlight that virtually every age group over 20 years, including both men and women of various socio-economic stature, is seeking out non-excisional and minimally invasive treatments that provide faster and highly effective outcomes without the downtime and risks of cosmetic surgery. Additionally, Dwight shared, "The industry is still in its infancy, and physician owners are seeking a global standard in training, certification, and ongoing support for their staff in basic and advanced techniques. They want to utilize the most popular technologies, like the Morpheus8, along with combination therapies that include a range of complimentary treatments such as the injectable Botox and soft tissue fillers, as well as non- and minimally invasive radio frequency devices and lasers. Alongside our core markets in North America and Mexico, we are seeing massive global demand in the United Kingdom, European Union, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Australia for cutting-edge learning delivered digitally. Doctors who are leaving managed care for the enhancement med spa space also need assistance in managing and marketing a private pay practice in the digital era, and our BoomerangFX LEARN platform can provide those much-needed educational tools and support. BoomerangFX currently offers hundreds of educational videos and webinars, certification programs, and content that cover a spectrum of training techniques and foundational business principles on how to launch, advertise, build, and manage a successful med spa practice. The educational resources, training videos, and companion materials are authored by BoomerangFX co-founder, Dr. R. Stephen Mulholland, one of the world's foremost authorities on cosmetic surgery, non-invasive aesthetic medical devices, and practice management. Mulholland was one the early pioneers in non-invasive aesthetic medical treatment technologies and helped to develop the underlying radio frequency technology and devices for InMode, which is one of the fastest-growing medical device companies globally. "I had the vision to launch the world's first and only specialized e-learning solution for the aesthetic medical market to enable future practices to learn the newest techniques and proven strategies to build and succeed in this exciting new industry," added Dr. Mulholland. Along with its e-learning cloud-based platform and solutions, BoomerangFX serves the aesthetic medical market with the industry's most advanced software as a solution (SaaS) practice management system, BoomerangFX RUN. It combines intuitive dashboards, integrated electronic medical records, scripting, patient workflow management, accounting, and scheduling. The BoomerangFX SaaS platform includes the industry's only fully integrated digital advertising and lead management solution, called GROW, which utilizes artificial intelligence and data science to optimize advertising on Google, Facebook, and other social media platforms to geo-target ideal customers for its med spa clients. Further, we complemented our software solution with virtual practice management consulting and coaching services, called OPTIMIZE. This additional unique feature, along with our integrated digital marketing and e-learning platform, is exactly what this new and dynamic industry needs to capitalize on the massive consumer demand. The team at BoomerangFX has worked diligently to provide these revolutionary platforms and we could not be more thrilled to be the global foundational platform driving the aesthetic medical market forward," Dwight continued.
About BoomerangFX
BoomerangFX is North America's fastest-growing cloud-based practice management company specializing in the aesthetic medicine industry. Co-founded by the globally recognized plastic surgeon and entrepreneur, Dr. R. Stephen Mulholland, along with technology entrepreneur and banking executive, Jerome Dwight, BoomerangFX revolutionized the private-pay aesthetic medicine industry by introducing the first turnkey practice management and digital marketing platform by seamlessly integrating digital ad placements, lead generation, electronic medical records (EMR), scheduling, customer relationship management (CRM), invoicing, and accounting in a single cloud-based service.
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TALENT DEVELOPMENT
amazon | November 09, 2022
Amazon and Yousician, the world's leading music education service, are collaborating to help inspire the next generation of musicians. Beginning October 24th, consumers who purchase a qualifying musical instrument in Amazon stores will receive as an added gift-with-purchase, 30-days free access to Yousician Premium+, making it easy for any beginner to get started learning an instrument. Yousician has set a new standard in music education with its gamified approach to learning how to play an instrument. Its platform offers thousands of interactive guitar, bass, piano, ukulele, and singing lessons to quickly learn to play your favorite songs from hundreds of artists across all musical spectrums: from Coldplay and Adele to Billie Eilish, Metallica, and many more. Amazon, whose Amazon's Alexa Fund invested in Yousician's $28 million Series B fund in April 2021, is collaborating for the first time with Yousician to create this special bundle. Yousician always offers new users the option to receive a 7-day free subscription, but with this collaboration, they will receive 30-days free. This is the first time Yousician has collaborated with another company for a consumer product bundle.
Yousician's approach to music education uses innovative audio recognition technology that differentiates the platform from its competitors. The audio feature listens to the user play and provides real-time feedback. The gamified experience is that of an on-demand music school with world-class instructors at the helm to guide interactive learning for users at any level.
"Through our collaboration with Amazon, we make it very easy for people to begin their musical hobby. Get the instrument delivered to your home, download the Yousician app and start playing. It's that simple. Customers trust Amazon's seamless retail experience, and millions trust Yousician to learn how to play an instrument. We're looking forward to being able to offer Yousician to Amazon customers and help them kickstart their musical journey."
Chris Thür, Co-founder and CEO of Yousician
Yousician recently partnered with Metallica, the multi-Grammy Award-winning and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band, to create 3 beginner-friendly courses with step-by-step tutorials directly from the band so users could learn the songs the way they're meant to be played directly from the band themselves. Amazon customers will receive a special code with their qualifying instrument purchase that gives them 30-days free access on Yousician Premium+. Premium+ access on Yousician includes unlimited lessons and thousands of songs to learn from. No credit card is required to redeem the offer. The promotion will kick off October 24th and run in the United States for a 1 year period.
About Yousician:
Yousician is the world's leading platform for learning and playing music, driven by the belief that the more people play music, the better this world will be. With a combined 20 million monthly users, the platform's groundbreaking products, Yousician and GuitarTuna, are the leaders in their field. Yousician has revolutionized how people learn and play music with innovative technology that gives players real-time feedback. It offers interactive learning for guitar, bass, ukulele, piano and singing with lessons, exercises and songs.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Spear Education | December 20, 2022
Avista Capital Partners ("Avista"), a leading private equity firm focused exclusively on healthcare, today announced its acquisition of Spear Education ("Spear" or the "Company"), a tech-enabled provider of digital and in-person clinical training, practice analytics and consulting solutions for the dental market. Transaction terms were not disclosed. Headquartered in Scottsdale, AZ, Spear is the industry's leading dental education provider. Spear offers unmatched breadth of content including 5,000+ on-demand videos, 300+ hands on workshops annually, and 100+ study club modules. Spear's solutions enable dentists to learn higher acuity skills and generate new revenue streams, providing a high ROI to dental practices and practitioners across the spectrum of experience. Avista Partner Sriram Venkatraman, said: "Avista sees Spear as a compelling investment opportunity given its industry leadership, demonstrated growth potential and diversified business model. We look forward to leveraging our deep experience in the healthcare technology sector and dental end-market to help accelerate Spear's growth trajectory.
"Spear has achieved robust growth over the last several years, with increases in membership and the expansion of our digital content. We are well positioned to capitalize on the tremendous opportunities ahead, against the backdrop of an accelerating industry. We are thrilled to have Avista as a partner as we pursue a multi-lever expansion strategy that will result in compelling benefits for our customers, employees and the entire dental industry."
CEO of Spear Education Kaleim Manji,
Steve Schiess, an Avista Strategic Executive with over 30 years of experience in the dental industry, most recently as the CEO of Zest Dental Solutions, a former Avista portfolio company, added, "Spear offers dentists a tremendous value proposition. Spear's education and training courses enable dentists to learn new skills that drive the retention of procedures in-house which, in turn, delivers a high return on their Spear investment. We believe there are multiple opportunities to accelerate both the dental practices' and Spear's growth. Wilkie Farr & Gallagher LLP acted as legal advisor and William Blair acted as financial advisor to Avista.
About Spear Education
Spear Education is dentistry's premier source for continuing education. The company serves dentists of all clinical skill levels and transforms practices and the lives of patients by offering physical hands-on courses, extensive peer-to-peer regional learning, and comprehensive online educational tools. For more information, go to www.speareducation.com.
About Avista Capital Partners
Founded in 2005, Avista Capital is a leading New York-based private equity firm with over $8 billion invested in more than 40 growth-oriented healthcare businesses globally. Avista partners with businesses that feature strong management teams, stable cash flows and robust growth prospects – investing in the medical devices, pharmaceuticals, outsourced pharmaceutical services, healthcare technology, healthcare distribution and diagnostics, and consumer healthcare sectors. Avista's Strategic Executives and Advisors are an integral part of the team, providing strategic insight, operational oversight and senior counsel, which helps drive growth and performance, while fostering sustainable businesses and creating long-term value for all stakeholders.
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