By Brice Wallace
A startup communications technology company has placed its headquarters in Farmington and plans to grow by 300 jobs in the next five years.
Udo LLC offers a video-based tech platform for applications that initially will focus on improving healthcare coordination and continuity. Its initial product is UdoCare, a smartphone application used by patients to communicate primarily through video to their medical providers, collaborators and family members.
“It’s not just tied to medical,” Derek Shields, the company’s director of operations, told the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (Go Utah) board, which approved a tax credit incentive of nearly $2.9 million over five years for the expansion project. “This will be applicable across many other segments. That’s just kind of our natural fit and we’ll launch there but really grow and expand.”
Jared Prisbrey, Udo’s sales director, said the platform allows patients to “capture their own health story” on the app by creating a “mini-documentary” of their healthcare experience. Currently when patients seek treatment at different healthcare settings, sometimes vital information is not captured, he said.
“So we really want to empower people to capture moments in time in their health story on a video app that allows them to keep those records and makes them timeless, so no matter where they go over time, it travels with them, informing everyone who will then interact and help and serve that patient,” Prisbrey said.
The company’s headquarters are in the Station Park building that once served as headquarters for Pluralsight. Founded in 2019 with four employees, the privately held company now has 62 workers. With the launch of UdoCare, Prisbrey said, the company “will hire lots more to support it, so we are beginning our marathon.”
Brigham Mellor, Farmington’s economic development director, told the Go Utah board that Udo’s technology has the potential to be “really, really disruptive in the healthcare industry.”
“I can see this being something that insurance providers or federal or state health agencies require [patients] use this type of service … as healthcare becomes more and more expensive, that we’re not wasting healthcare dollars duplicating information just because you changed healthcare providers or you switched insurances,” he said.
“Anybody who’s had to switch doctors for whatever reason or had to retake tests because they made a choice in healthcare understands the potential for this company to be our second Farmington unicorn [after Pluralsight]. This company, I feel like, is something that everyone is going to use at some point.”
“We’ve got a very strong workforce to be able to help the growth with Udo,” said Kent Anderson, Davis County’s community and economic development director. “You can see the support that they’ve gotten from the private sector in their model, so Davis County is really excited to throw our support behind this project.”
The $6.2 million project is expected to generate new total wages of $150 million over five years and new state tax revenue of about $14.4 million during that time. The average wage of the new jobs is expected to be $137,541.
“Udo is progressing rapidly, even by Utah technology standards,” Danny Fraser, Udo co-founder and CEO, said in a prepared statement. “We intend to create as much benefit for the Utah community and economic ecosystem as we possibly can. This commitment of support from the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity will be a significant aid to our ability to reach our highest potential while locating our company headquarters and as many of our employees as possible here.”
Dan Hemmert, Go Utah’s executive director, called the project “a big win” for Davis County. “Udo will add to Utah’s growing health tech sector, creating jobs for engineers, copywriters and more,” he said. “We wish Udo success as they continue to grow.”
“A lot of tech talent commutes south out of Davis County every day,” said Chris Roybal, president of the Northern Utah Economic Alliance (NUEA). “Udo’s choice of Station Park, with its convenient location and many amenities, will prove to be a recruiting plus for them.”
