Rachael Craig, who was active in the early days of the Halifax startup ecosystem, now has a Silicon Valley exit on her résumé.
Craig was a Co-Founder and (until recently) CEO of San Francisco-based MotionHall, which developed software that provided data to help biotech companies accelerate deals in drug discovery. Last week, London-based information provider Clarivate Plc agreed to buy virtually all the assets of MotionHall for an undisclosed price.
The announcement said the buyer, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of almost US$5 billion, would acquire the “full intellectual property, clients and team” of MotionHall. Craig has been serving since December as Clarivate’s Senior Vice-President and Managing Director of Life Sciences and Healthcare Strategy Products, according to LinkedIn.
"Clarivate is well positioned to become a leading industry vertical artificial intelligence player,” said Craig in the statement. “Your healthier tomorrow is being built through the successful combination of deep life sciences industry expertise and mastery of frontier AI capabilities.”
Ten years ago, Craig was working in Halifax as Interim Executive Adviser for Brilliant Labs, the organization that teaches coding to high school students. It was common to see her at Volta, when the Halifax startup hub occupied a couple of floors above a mattress shop in Spring Garden Road.
In 2015, she teamed up with fellow entrepreneur Matthew Jewkes to form MotionHall in the Bay area.
They set out to develop software that helps people working in pharma, biotech, and life sciences venture capital find the right information about drug candidates to accelerate deals. The company uses data analytics and artificial intelligence to help deal-makers find innovations that will help them bring new drugs to the market.
Its backers include Village Global, a network-driven fund whose investors include Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and Jeff Bezos, as well as First Star Ventures and Outlier Ventures.
MotionHall’s assets and team are now being taken on by Clarivate, which Reuters describes as “a global provider of data, analytics, technology and expert services to several sectors including healthcare.” Craig noted in a social media post over the weekend that the company has 14,000 employees.
The MotionHall website says the company has a team of 30 people.
"As part of our strategy, Clarivate will enhance existing products and introduce novel solutions utilizing AI, to streamline clients' workflows and accelerate speed to insight and action,” said Henry Levy, Clarivate’s President of Life Sciences and Healthcare. “Concurrent with this transaction, the team from MotionHall has joined Clarivate to progress our on-going commitment to provide exceptional value for our clients across the entire drug, device and medical technology lifecycle."
