Innovate Utah: NEW IDEAS, PRODUCTS AND SERVICES FROM UTAH COMPANIES

Celtic Bank, a Salt Lake City-based industrial bank, has introduced a commercial loan offering suitable to technology companies that are not a good fit for traditional loan products, given the nature of their business models. The company’s new product is called the Recurring Revenue Loan.

“This is an interesting loan product that may not be suitable for many traditional banking organizations,” said Reese Howell Jr., CEO of Celtic Bank. “It requires a different analysis and different way of evaluating risk. These characteristics are what make it attractive to Celtic Bank.”

Celtic’s recurring revenue loans are designed for growth-stage software and technology companies providing “mission critical” technology platforms to their customer bases and have recurring (contractual or subscription) revenue models. Because their primary assets are typically intangible, owners and founders have a hard time securing commercial financing through conventional means. Instead, they usually raise capital by exchanging equity in their company.

“Because our lending program is a pure debt instrument, recurring revenue financing is an option for companies to raise growth capital without further equity dilution,” said Daniel Godfrey, senior vice president of asset-based lending and business development officer for recurring revenue financing at Celtic Bank.

“Because our recurring revenue program is particularly tailored for growth-stage technology companies with a two- to four-year horizon on a liquidity event, the repayment structure is designed to preserve cash for continued growth. Our loans are structured as interest-only that is split between cash pay and a paid-in-kind component that is deferred until maturity. Ideally, this is one of the last tranches of capital to be raised to get them to a liquidity event,” said Godfrey.

Draper-based Progressive Leasing, a provider of e-commerce, app-based and in-store lease-to-own solutions, has launched ProgCentral, a new retailer management platform that allows merchants to manage every aspect of their lease-to-own business from a computer, tablet or mobile device. The platform’s functionality includes a streamlined user experience and enhanced search, reporting and security features. “ProgCentral simplifies and improves the experience for our merchants, giving them the tools and information that they need to efficiently navigate the process of lease application, approval tracking, payment management, delivery scheduling and transaction completion,” said Ben Hawksworth, Progressive Leasing’s chief product and technology officer. “The new experience was developed with valuable input from retailers and will help them save time at the point of sale by providing answers to the most commonly asked questions.”

Domo, a platform that offers business intelligence, data visualization and analytics based in American Fork, has introduced Sandbox, a development and testing environment built on the Domo platform, helping customers create and promote content into production. Sandbox adds to Domo’s list of capabilities that help customers solve challenges that are common with the increased demand for large-scale business intelligence (BI) and analytics deployments. “As the demand for BI and analytics continues to scale across organizations, data professionals need a way to innovate and collaborate with speed while not compromising their production environment,” said Doug Henschen, vice president of Domo customer Constellation Research. “It’s helpful to have a space where all constituents can see work in progress, share comments and contribute to the development of better, action-driving analytic content.”

Salt Lake City’s Franklin Covey Co., a global firm specializing in organizational performance improvement, has teamed with HarperCollins Leadership to release Master Mentors: 30 Transformative Insights from Our Greatest Minds, by Wall Street Journal bestselling author Scott Jeffrey Miller. The book had reached No. 1 bestseller status on Amazon prior to its release. The book features insights gleaned from the “On Leadership with Scott Miller” podcast. “Each insight is worthy of deeper dive and further engagement with the ‘master mentor’ behind it,” said Miller. “Choose one, work to incorporate it into your life and you’ll find it’ll yield demonstrably positive results. Which insight tugs at you as the potential solution to a stifling weakness, or which ignites your creativity and drives you to do something different?"

Nature’s Sunshine Products, a natural health and wellness company specializing in herbal and nutritional products, has announced the U.S. launch of a line of clean beauty products called l’amara. The Lehi-based company first introduced the beauty line in Asia in 2020 and said it features natural ingredients sourced from land and sea. “Nature’s Sunshine has brought the healing power of herbs to millions of Americans for more than 50 years,” said Terrence Moorehead, CEO of Nature’s Sunshine. “This next iteration of our journey is introducing nourishing and transformative beauty ingredients with the launch of l’amara, to help bring the ‘healing power of herbs’ to your skin.” The l’amara collection features a proprietary blend of dermatologist-tested, antioxidant-rich fermented green tea leaves and soothing algae, Moorehead said.

Qualtrics, a Provo-based provider in the experience management category, is launching its Brand Impact Simulator, a self-service tool that helps brand leaders understand and prioritize brand attributes — such as “easy to use” or “ethically sourced” — that have the greatest impact in winning new customers. Organizations can use the module to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their marketing and campaigns to accelerate customer acquisition, the company said. “Customers have more choices than ever and to remain competitive, organizations need a new approach to brand experience to help them adapt to the constantly changing preferences of consumers,” said Paul Sheets, Qualtrics general manager. “Brand Impact Simulator makes it easier for brand and marketing leaders to quickly turn insight into action to strengthen their brands and accelerate customer acquisition.”

St. George-based TCN Inc., a provider of a cloud-based call center platform for enterprises, contact centers, business process outsourcing services and collection agencies, is launching “The Complete Guide to Managing Call Center Agents,”Êa free online resource for managers in these categories. “Managing a busy call center is no easy task, which is why we’ve created our online guide to help managers unlock their agents’ soft and hard skills that are essential to developing powerful customer experiences,” said McKay Bird, chief marketing officer at TCN. “Call center agents are an integral part of customer service and it’s vital that they feel valued and acknowledged in order to best serve customers.” The online guide offers numerous strategies and best practices for keeping call center agents engaged and working efficiently, Bird said.

ReposiTrak Inc., a Salt Lake City-based compliance management platform supplier, is introducing a new series of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program solutions designed to help organizations attract, vet, onboard and manage suppliers for diversity and environmentally sustainable and ethical sourcing. The new solutions are being introduced as more companies are required to expand CSR sourcing programs. “Meaningful CSR programs are about setting and achieving sourcing and spend goals that align with a company’s diversity and sustainability values,” said Randy Fields, chairman and CEO of ReposiTrak. “Unfortunately, many companies don’t even have an accurate list of their current suppliers, so baselining and goal-setting for CSR goals is practically impossible. ReposiTrak can automate spend tracking by vetting and validating new and existing suppliers based on their claims and status."