Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • February 12, 2018 • Hartford Business Journal 13 Reporter's Notebook Matt Pilon | mpilon@HartfordBusiness.com Health Care/Bioscience, Startups & Entrepreneurs, Government/Law and Energy GOVERNMENT Gas-tax revenue shows its limitations Late last month, Gov. Dannel P. Mal- loy called for lawmakers to authorize statewide tolls, a new fee on tire pur- chases and a 7-cents-per-gallon hike in the state's 25-cent gasoline tax. In his final year in office, Malloy is hoping to pave a path to a future where the state's Special Transporta- tion Fund can afford a slate of major road and bridge projects. His proposals are sure to be contro- versial in the recently begun legisla- tive session. No matter how you feel about the state's roads, its fiscal habits or Mal- loy himself, data shows that the single largest source of revenue for transpor- tation projects is more or less flatlining. The gasoline or "motor fuels" tax represents about one-third of the taxes and fees that make their way into the STF each year. Gasoline consumption ticked up in fiscal years 2015 and 2016, helping drive a revenue boost for the STF. But gas-tax revenue dipped last fis- cal year to just over $484 million, the lowest amount since 2013, according to the state Department of Revenue Services. The state's most recent consensus revenue report projects over the next five years that gas-tax receipts won't exceed $503 million. Looking out into the not-so-distant future, the Argonne National Labora- tory predicts that 58 percent of light vehicles will be electric by 2030, which portends a drop in the STF coffers. "It's a dying funding source," Malloy said at a recent press conference. "This state, like every other state, is going to have to figure that out." STARTUPS & ENTREPRENEURS LindaCare to deepen CT roots with $8.7M fundraise D uring the summer of 2016, when Connecticut Innova- tions was scouting Europe for startups to compete in its inaugural VentureClash investment competition, officials stumbled upon LindaCare, which was developing tech- nology that allows doctors to remotely monitor patients with pacemakers and internal defibrillators. At the same time, LindaCare was considering the U.S. as a potential expansion market. Fast-forward to later that year, and LindaCare walked away from CI's Ven- tureClash as one of several winners of a $500,000 investment prize. "That was the start of things and our expansion in Connecticut," Lin- daCare CEO Shahram Sharif said in a recent interview from the company's home country of Belgium. "Connecti- cut came along and it was not a delib- erate choice, but the more we thought about it, we said it's a great choice." For a company targeting hospitals and private physician practices, Connecticut is as good a beachhead as any, given the Northeast's dense healthcare market and the state's proximity to major population centers like Boston and New York. LindaCare opened a Hartford office in Upward Hartford's co-working space at 20 Church St. last year, where it houses several employees. That number is expected to grow af- ter LindaCare last month raised about $8.7 million from investors, including publicly traded healthcare tech pro- vider Philips, Connecticut Innovations ($735,000), and others. Sharif said he hopes to have 10 employees in Hartford by year's end, including product and business devel- opment managers, a device technician and application engineer. "Our intention is to build out the Hartford office," he said. The company's ultimate ambition is to go global, but the next big step in its business plan is to tap the U.S. market. LindaCare is testing its remote- monitoring platform, OnePulse, with a handful of potential U.S.customers, including one Connecticut hospital, which Sharif declined to name. The company has already been selling its technology in Europe. Sharif said LindaCare is making some changes to OnePulse to adapt it to the U.S. healthcare market and hopes to be selling the system here this year. OnePulse can monitor four differ- ent types of heart implants, which are made by different manufacturers, Sharif said. Implant makers offer their own monitoring solutions, but Linda- Care was able to corral the companies into an arrangement in which it could monitor all of them through one tech- nology platform, he said. The reason they've agreed, he said, is that repeat check-ups of recent implant patients is a challenge for doctors, driving up costs and using re- sources. Remote monitoring patients is more efficient and a better way to ensure improved outcomes, he added. "We are creating value for their cus- tomers (hospitals and doctors), which will be an advantage for every player," he said. LindaCare isn't the only company that's come up with the technology. Sharif said there are a few others of- fering unified platforms, but he thinks there's room for all, and that Linda- Care's system has good ease of use. "If you have such a huge market with only two or three players, that is still a very attractive market opportu- nity," he said. Historic gas tax revenue, consumption 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Gallons Consumed (billions) 1.79 1.74 1.75 1.73 1.7 1.67 1.67 1.69 1.75 1.74 Tax Revenue (millions) $484.20 $477 $484.20 $469.70 $477 $483.90 $488.70 $497.50 $501.60 $484.40 Source: Dept. of Revenue Services Projected gas tax revenue 2019 2019 2020 2021 2022 Motor fuels tax (millions) $501.40 $502.30 $502.80 $500.30 $497.80 Source: State Office of Fiscal Analysis and Office of Policy and Management LindaCare CEO Sharam Sharif pitches the judges at Connecticut Innovation's inaugural VentureClash in 2016. The company won a $500,000 prize that day helping solidify its future in Connecticut. HBJ PHOTO | MATT PILON

• Cover