SALINA  —  Medical-imaging hardware and software developer InfiMed, Inc. will soon be a part of Palo Alto, Calif.–based Varian Medical Systems, Inc. under an acquisition agreement slated to close in early April.

Varian (NYSE: VAR) agreed to purchase privately owned InfiMed for $15 million, plus payments based on the sales of InfiMed products over the next two years. The transaction will include InfiMed’s headquarters at 121 Metropolitan Park Drive in Salina.

Varian manufactures medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, and brachytherapy. It supplies tubes and digital detectors for medical, scientific, and industrial X-ray imaging.

InfiMed will be integrated into Varian’s X-Ray Products division, according to Robert Kluge, Varian’s president for that division. Varian will then be able to provide its customers with a more complete product line, he says.

“It’s a fit for our business,” Kluge says. “If you take our imaging receptors and add them to InfiMed’s processing capability, it’s a more capable product. It’s one that we can package together.”

Integrating different components in imaging systems can be a challenge, according to Kluge. Varian’s customers often ask for integration help, and the company decided it wanted to offer imaging receptors and processing as a package.

Company leaders at Varian considered developing image processing in-house, Kluge says. But they first decided to look for potential partnerships and acquisitions — and found InfiMed.

“[InfiMed] knew that these components were coming together,” Kluge says. 

Varian does not plan to close InfiMed’s headquarters in Salina or a satellite office it operates outside of Rochester, according to Kluge. No layoffs are planned, he adds. InfiMed employs about 60 people.

Operations at InfiMed’s offices will be fully integrated with other aspects of Varian’s X-Ray Products division, according to Kluge. He expects revenue to increase across the division and believes InfiMed’s offices will also generate more revenue in the future.

“We think that the business will probably expand significantly for them over the next three years as a result of this [acquisition],” Kluge says. “The X-Ray Products business has grown 15 percent or so over the last five years. I think they’ll be on the higher end of that.”

InfiMed generates about $15 million in revenue annually. 

Varian’s X-Ray Products division totaled $469 million in revenue in its 2011 fiscal year, while the entire company generated nearly $2.6 billion in revenue that year, according to its annual report. Varian’s net income totaled almost $400 million in the period.

Growth at Varian does not typically come from acquisitions, Kluge says. 

“We have mostly organic growth,” he says. “Most of our acquisitions are small, and we don’t really make that many. We’ve only made three or four over the last fifteen years or so.”

Varian will likely use the InfiMed name on some products, which will take advantage of existing brand equity, according to Kluge. He anticipates keeping current InfiMed President Amy Ryan to run the company’s operations in Salina.

“This is an exciting development for our business and our employees,” Ryan said in a news release. “By joining with Varian, we will be able to offer our leading technology in digital-image processing to more customers around the world.”

Ryan declined a request for further comment and referred questions to Varian.

Varian employs about 5,900 people at manufacturing sites in America, Europe, and China. Its X-Ray Products division has roughly 800 employees.

The California company did not use any outside brokers or accountants in the deal to acquire InfiMed, according to Franco Palomba, Varian’s corporate senior vice president for finance and business development and the company’s corporate treasurer.

InfiMed’s headquarters on Metropolitan Park Drive is 27,000 square feet, according to records from the Onondaga County Office of Real Property Tax Services. The facility and the land it sits on were assessed at just under $1.3 million in 2011, the records state.     

SYRACUSE — The new anchor tenant in downtown Syracuse’s Tech Garden is homegrown.

Rounded Development moved into the facility’s 1,600-square-foot anchor space in February. The firm, which specializes in app and Web development, was formed from businesses that grew up in the Tech Garden.

AppFury, founded in 2009, and Rounded Development, launched in 2011, were neighbors in the facility and eventually began collaborating on projects. The two firms started to overlap in their work so much, it simply made sense to join forces, says Eric Hinman, partner at Rounded Development and co-founder of AppFury.

“We had been working together for nine months,” says Andrew Farah, also a partner at Rounded. “It was almost like dating. And then after that, it was let’s do this.”

Farah was a co-founder and director of operations at Rounded and also previously served as chief technology officer at AppFury.

The merger is still in the process of closing, Hinman adds, and should wrap up later this month. The firms decided to use Rounded’s name since it indicates a broader focus than AppFury, although AppFury will remain a brand underneath Rounded, he says.

Long term, Hinman says traditional client work will provide the smallest piece of Rounded’s revenue. The company expects to generate far more business with its own products and through partnerships it develops with clients.

Before the merger, for example, AppFury and Rounded worked together to develop a virtual business card platform. Through a QR code printed on a traditional business card, users can easily download information about each other’s companies and connect
on social networks.

Syracuse–based Dupli, a local printing company, is now selling the platform as one of its products, Hinman says.

Rounded is also partnering with Mirbeau Inn and Spa of Skaneateles to develop an iPad-based menu for its steakhouse and wine
bar. The idea is to eventually sell the system to others in the hospitality business, Hinman says.

The company has worked frequently with younger companies for a stake in a product rather than all cash, Farah says.

The goal is for the company to spend most of its time on its own products and in partnerships. That work will be supported by a base of ongoing work with three to five larger clients, Farah says.

Some Rounded clients include CenterState CEO; PPC of DeWitt, a manufacturer of connectors used in telecommunications; and the Woodbine Group, a Syracuse–based real estate developer.

Rounded employs nine people, four from AppFury and five from Rounded, along with several project-based contractors. Farah says the company hopes to add another two people this summer.

The Tech Garden anchor space the company occupies was formerly home to Visory Group, an information-technology firm. Visory merged in May with Integrity Networking Systems of Fairport to form IV4, Inc.

IV4 relocated to a new office at 344 W. Genesee St.

Editor’s note: AppFury developed The Business Journal’s mobile website.  

DeWITT –– Gair and Tom Adams recently started their Home Instead Senior Care franchise business, serving Onondaga County’s growing needs for companion care for senior citizens.

Home Instead, Inc. (dba, Home Instead Senior Care), a Nebraska–based company that provides non-medical senior-care services, was founded in 1994 by Paul and Lori Hogan. The independently owned and operated company has 886 franchisees worldwide, including locations in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, according to a profile of Home Instead at entrepreneur.com.

Home Instead franchisees help seniors with meal preparation, laundry, light housekeeping, transportation to and from a doctors’ appointments, reminders to take medication, errands, and shopping that can help seniors remain independent. The caregivers also offer companionship.

Syracuse franchise

The local franchise, called Home Instead Senior Care Syracuse, opened Jan. 30 and is located at 6443 Ridings Road, Suite 123 in the town of DeWitt. It is Home Instead’s 766th franchise in the United States.

Gair Adams, co-owner of Home Instead Syracuse, says she and her husband Tom were inspired to start the Syracuse–area franchise because of the region’s growing older population, which will need more services as it ages.

“There’s a huge elderly population and there are a lot of people who need care … ” she says. “Things become difficult as we age. It’s hard to make your bed if you’re 92.”

Prior to opening their Home Instead Syracuse franchise, Gair Adams says she worked as a pharmaceutical representative and as an elementary school educator, while Tom was a small-business owner and high-school guidance counselor. Gair says personal experience prompted them to join the senior-care industry.

“We’ve helped care for different elderly people,” she says. “We have a lot of elderly family members, friends, and relatives. And we’ve seen what it’s like when people age  and the amount of care that they need.”

The couple first learned about the Home Instead franchise opportunity from their friends, Dr. James Holler and his wife Teresa Holler, who own and operate a Home Instead franchise in the Binghamton area.

“They’ve owned the company [franchise] for eight years, and said it’s one of the most rewarding things you can do,” says Gair Adams. “They kept telling us for eight years that we would be good at this business because we have the background for it.”

Gair and Tom Adams contacted Home Instead, Inc. after they realized there was a franchise available in the Syracuse area.

“We went to Omaha, Nebraska for repeated interviews, and they put us through the ‘wringer,’ ” Gair Adams quips. “So we had to provide six references to them, each of us, both my husband and myself; we had to interview with probably about six people and eventually we were offered the agency [franchise],” she adds.

She says the couple signed a 10-year franchise agreement, which started Jan. 23. The Syracuse franchise’s startup costs and ongoing royalty fees are similar to those of other Home Instead Senior Care franchises, says Adams, declining to provide specific numbers, nor disclose her source for financing or the franchise’s revenue goals.

Home Instead franchisees are required to pay a $39,000 franchise fee, along with a 5-percent ongoing royalty fee, and franchise agreements are for 10 years and can be renewed, according to the profile at entrepreneur.com. Franchise owners are expected to make a total investment of $50,550 to $63,550. 

Caregivers

Home Instead franchises have to be highly selective when hiring caregivers, says Adams. Applicants must go through a criminal-background check, a Department of Motor Vehicles driving-record check, a drug and alcohol screening, and must submit at least six references, she adds. In addition, employees have to complete a series of mandatory training programs including basic safety training, and basic caregiver training, before they start a placement in a senior citizen’s residence.

“Our franchiser requires us to do that … we follow all their protocols,” Adams says. “We would do it anyway. We would not put any caregiver in a senior citizen’s home that we would not think would do an excellent job caring for our parents.”

Besides the mandatory training programs, Home Instead Senior Care also offers free web seminars that employees can attend. Additional training such as Alzheimer’s, dementia training, and advanced caregiver training are also available for its staff.

Adams says most of Home Instead Syracuse’s 10 employees have prior experience as caregivers with the elderly.

“We’ve got retired nurses. We have someone that we want to hire that’s got a master degree in social work,” she says. “A lot of people that are interviewing with us are certified medical assistants … Obviously, the Syracuse area has people that are very well-educated with great backgrounds.”

The franchise also provides clients with respite care for families that may already be giving care for a senior citizen, and transitional care for those coming from a hospital or nursing home and need transitional care.

Off to an optimistic start

The Syracuse franchise has been seeing early success, and is looking forward to a long-term relationship with Home Instead, Inc., says Adams.

“So far, I’ve been very happy with the activity that we’ve seen so far … both with the number of caregivers that have inquired about working for us, and the number of clients that have contacted us in just [the first few] weeks,” she says. “Our phone has been ringing off the hook.”

Adams says the franchise’s staff will grow depending on its need, and she is expecting to launch a second training class for about five or six caregivers in the next few weeks.

“Obviously, we are expanding,” she says. “The more clients we get, the more people we will hire.”

Home Instead Senior Care Syracuse is now hiring part-time caregivers who will work 20 to 25 hours per week. It also has an opening for a full-time office manager.