The Riverside Company has purchased GTI Diagnostics, which makes specialty blood testing kits.
The Riverside Company, a Cleveland-based private equity firm, recently purchased Waukesha-based GTI Diagnostics, which designs and manufactures specialty test kits used in the blood testing industry. GTI Diagnostics was formerly owned by the Blood Center of Wisconsin Research Foundation.
The company’s test kits are sold to some of the most well-respected hospitals, research institutions, blood banks and reference labs in the U.S. and around the world. There are 400 labs around the world using more than 20 GTI test kit products. In producing its products, GTI sources specialized blood components, isolates and purifies a variety of proteins that are used to create proprietary and complex test kits.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. "There are dynamic growth opportunities in the blood center industry," said Scott Gilbertson, principal of origination for new Midwestern investment opportunities for The Riverside Company. "There is a need (in the clinical setting) to provide patient bases that diseases are not being passed."
No GTI Diagnostics employees will be affected by the acquisition, Gilbertson said. Jim Tidey, GTI’s founder and CEO, will continue with the firm and has become an investor in the company. "The company is healthy and it’s a growing organization," Gilbertson said. "We’ll look to support the company and will look to staff up where necessary."
The Riverside Company owns several other health care and medical investments, Gilbertson said. GTI is the firm’s fourth portfolio company in metro Milwaukee and its seventh in Wisconsin. "We are the most active (private equity) investor in the state," Gilbertson said. "And we will continue to look for opportunities in Wisconsin."
