Interview: Mike Hewitt, President CEO, vTestify

organization (CRO) Parexel was acquired by a EQT Private Equity and Goldman Sachs Asset Management partnership for $8.5 billion. The same month saw the $12 billion buyout of Raleigh’s PRA Health by ICON plc. These acquisitions highlight not only investor appetite in the region but also the attractiveness of the Triangle’s healthcare sector, on par with its burgeoning tech industry.

Talent pipeline With the region on a strong and steady growth path, the professional services sector is well poised to take advantage, with an enviable pipeline of talent. The Triangle alone boasts a strong fabric of higher educational institutions, including the trifecta of Tier 1 research universities: Duke University, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill). The region’s academic ecosystem includes another 12 colleges and universities, as well as eight community colleges. This environment of higher education includes 176,000 students enrolled and 65,000 annual graduates. Moreover, the Triangle ranks fourth in the United States as the area with the highest concentration of Ph.Ds. In parallel, 47% of local residents have a bachelor’s or higher.

The result of all this is a thriving talent pool from which the professional services industry can pull as the ( ) Mike Hewitt

President & CEO vTestify

What makes the Raleigh-Durham area a great location for vTestify?

We formed this company in Florida but we came back to the Raleigh-Durham area for the same reasons as the bigger companies that are moving here, such as Apple or Google. Ultimately, it’s all about access to talent and the thriving business ecosystem. The Achilles’ heel of this area years ago was a lack of access to investment capital but that has been changing with Apple and Google putting their East Coast headquarters here and with so many startups coming here.

What is the purpose of vTestify?

We want to be the best capture tool for evidence. This is our niche. We’re an enabling technology for various legal matters, such as court reporting, arbitration and mediation. Our software product reduces costs for clients because they don’t have to travel for their trials, saving them time. It even helps to reduce their carbon footprint.

The cost of travel for lawyers was very prohibitive; the quality of the case was directly related to how much you could invest into it. There is also a dwindling supply of court reporters. There are almost no court reporting schools left in the United States. Virtually no new people are coming into the industry and there’s an aging out of the current court reporters. We’re helping the legal industry bridge this human capital gap.

What is your outlook for the legal industry?

I believe the industry is becoming more singularly platform-based. The legal industry is moving quicker than other industries in coming toward technological innovation and integration. I think we’ll see a platform emerge for litigation management where everything can be found under that one platform, whether it be connections and ediscovery, depositions, arbitration, mediation or evidence under oath. The legal industry is going toward an integrated solution rather than individual pieces.