Built on eleven million dollars of federal research grants before it took a cent of venture capital.
Motivity is the only company in this category built substantially on federal research money. Before it took any venture capital it had drawn Small Business Innovation Research grants from the National Institutes of Health — the company says over $11 million, and NIH's public grant database records $10,591,366 across eighteen awards from 2013 onwards. The grants were made to Experiad, LLC of Honolulu, the legal entity behind Motivity, with founder Rex Jakobovits as principal investigator.4
That shows in the product. Motivity's reputation is for flexible clinical data collection rather than billing or scheduling, which is what research funding buys you — years to work on the clinical problem without a sales quota.1
In March 2025 Five Elms Capital invested $27 million. Founder Rex Jakobovits, who had sold a previous company to McKesson, moved to Chief of Strategy and Innovation; Smith Anderson, previously an operating partner at Five Elms, became CEO. A month later Motivity launched practice management built on Calmanac, and a year after that agreed to buy Calmanac outright.2
| What | Amount | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| NIH research grants | $10,591,366 | Eighteen awards, FY2013 to FY2024, recorded in NIH RePORTER against Experiad, LLC. The company describes it as over $11 million. This money is non-dilutive — it does not buy equity.4 |
| Five Elms Capital | $27 million | March 2025. Both parties call it a growth investment rather than a priced venture round; we use their language.2 |
| Calmanac acquisition | Not disclosed | May 2026. A definitive agreement, not a completed purchase.3 |