Dealmakers Awards Presentation

1315 Capital manages over $925 million and provides expansion and growth capital to commercial-stage healthcare services, medical technology, and therapeutics / pharma services companies. The team believes that these investment areas are attractive largely due to numerous niche market sub-segments and business models where high-quality management teams can rapidly grow small platform companies, in a capital efficient way, into large and important businesses that positively impact patients, physicians, and the broader healthcare system.

Suchit Bachalli is the CEO of Unilog, the leading B2B e-commerce platform for mid-sized companies and specialty retail businesses. Throughout his career, Suchit has been dedicated to building sophisticated, large-scale e-commerce solutions tailored to help mid-market businesses maintain a competitive edge in today’s high-speed world. As CEO, Suchit’s role is to provide a vision for the future of e-commerce, rooted in Unilog’s culture of customer-centric innovation. In 2020, Suchit led Unilog in securing significant growth capital from Investcorp, a leading global private equity firm.

Previously, Suchit served as President of Unilog North America, during which time he established the company’s U.S. operations in the Philadelphia region and deployed resources to significantly grow local employment, eventually relocating the company’s global headquarters to Wayne, PA.

Dan has spent the last 13 years acquiring and operating lower middle market businesses.  In 2006, he co-founded Timberline Capital Partners, which acquired Astro Machine Works, Inc. in 2006 and Elite Sportswear, L.P. in 2007. 

For Astro, he provided strategic oversight as an active member of the Board of Directors. 

For Elite, out of necessity, Dan stepped in as CEO in 2008 to oversee its turnaround and spearhead its growth.  In early 2015, Elite was sold to the Riverside Company.  Dan continued as CEO of Elite for three additional years, leading the expansion of the executive team and five strategic add-on acquisitions.

Prior to Timberline, Dan spent 13 years as an interim CFO/CEO, turnaround consultant and investment banker, specializing in mergers and acquisitions, for two regional firms.  Dan began his business career in 1984 at Meridian Bancorp, rising to Vice President of Business Unit Planning and Profitability, where he oversaw multiple internal acquisitions.

Carter has spent the last 13 years acquiring and operating lower middle market businesses.  In 2006, he co-founded Timberline Capital Partners, which acquired Astro Machine Works, Inc. in 2006 and Elite Sportswear, L.P. in 2007.

For Astro, he has acted as de facto-CFO and served as a member of the Board of Directors.  He was instrumental in establishing an open-book management operating model and recently managed the company through a successful leveraged ESOP transaction.

For Elite, he served on the Board of Directors and would oversee various strategic initiatives, most notably the development and launch of an all-star cheer apparel business unit.

Prior to Timberline, Carter spent 13 years as an investment banker, specializing in mergers and acquisitions and business valuations, for two regional firms.  Carter began his business career in 1993 at Meridian Capital Markets, initially as a Financial Analyst for the firm’s Institutional Fixed Income division before being promoted to Corporate Finance, where he assisted clients with capital strategies.

John is an accomplished, creative & high-energy entrepreneur, strategic marketer, conceptual problem solver, committed family member, wellness enthusiast, avid moviegoer and huge Mixed Martial Arts/UFC fan.

The Greater Philadelphia 2005 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year candidate has founded several companies over a 27-year C-level career including GlobalFit, the nations leading provider of physical activity programs for American businesses, serving over 70 million eligible lives.

John drives organizational transformation by contributing to the development and execution of company-wide and department-specific strategic plans. John is a respected leader, proven organizational change agent and expert in the creation of high performance teams supporting regional and national sales initiatives.

With over 25 years of executive, operations, sales & marketing, and general management experience, John led an A-level executive leadership team to operate GlobalFit out of 49 US cities. GlobalFit boasts an award-winning customer service department and was awarded 100 fastest growing privately held companies in 2003 through 2007.

Andrew DeFino is the Chief Growth Officer at Heart + Paw, heading up Acquisitions, Partnerships, Denovo development, and company strategic growth initiatives. Prior to helping start Heart + Paw in 2018, Andrew was at Veterinary Practice Partners and spent 15 years working as an international institutional fixed income and equity portfolio manager at Blackrock and Kalmar Investments.

Dr. George Melillo is the founder and chief veterinary officer at Heart + Paw. With 40+ years of experience in the profession, he set out to create a company where veterinary care providers could practice happy, healthy, and successfully while treating pets and their parents like family in a reimagined way. In his current role he oversees medicine, human resources, operations, and is active in all acquisitions.

Prior to Heart + Paw, he has had extensive start-up success as a practice owner, co-founder of two human pharmaceutical companies and was a regional leader at the largest corporate veterinary practice in the country.

As founder and CEO of Chain.io, Brian Glick has made a career of simplifying complex supply chain and trade compliance IT challenges. Whether analyzing complex coding issues or rationalizing the compliance impacts of a vendor direct drop ship program, Brian brings a rare combination of executive perspective and deep technical knowledge to today’s supply chain challenges. From the early days of web-based visibility platforms and into today’s connected ecosystem, Brian has been an active leader in each phase of the connected supply chain evolution. With a focus on retail and apparel supply chains, Brian has brought his expertise to bear as an IT leader both within logistics service providers and through independent software companies.

Adit Gupta is the co-founder & CEO of Lula, Inc - an institutionally backed delivery tech company serving convenience stores across the US. Lula is the industry-leading solution for convenience stores to enable last-mile delivery. He is also a Ph.D. candidate at Drexel University, with research interests in Artificial Intelligence and Human-Computer Interaction. Adit graduated from Drexel University with a B.S. in Software Engineering (class of ’19) and started Lula shortly after, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mike Schreiber is the CEO and Founder of Playfly Sports, a fan engagement company and the emerging leader in sports marketing and media. A long-time transformative leader, Schreiber previously spent time building industry-first TV and film digital distribution deals at NBC Universal, helped lead the founding of hulu.com in 2007, and drove Comcast Cable's new media and digital content/platform deals as part of their digital evolution. The UVA graduate also became the Chief Content Officer, and a founding executive, of Altice USA in 2016, which later became a Fortune 500 company and the fourth largest cable company in the U.S.

Dr. Melissa Sherman is the driving force behind MOBILion’s success. From day one when Dr. Sherman discovered and vetted the technology as a promising commercial opportunity, to becoming CEO and raising a total of $116.4M to keep it progressing, her vision, dedication and drive have guided MOBILion to continuously achieve value-creating milestones. Dr. Sherman’s leadership is essential to the success of MOBILion because her unique breadth of skills including business acumen, vision and technical intelligence, combined with a relentless passion for perpetual customer input, developing people, establishing corporate culture and operational excellence created a fun place to work with never-give-up values.

After completing his Mohs Fellowship and working for a number of years for a multi-location group in Pennsylvania, Dr. Shurman wanted to strike out and start his own group with the goals of excellent patient care, high quality support and systems, and a model of practice which helps each individual doctor provide the best care possible.

In 2012, he and Andrew Frankel started Pennsylvania Dermatology Partners in Reading, Pennsylvania, quickly expanding and attracting a variety of doctors to our practice model.

While focusing much of his time on perfecting his Mohs practice and care for his dedicated patients, Dr. Shurman also finds time to attend to the goals and direction of the practice and sets the vision for delivery of patient care.

Mr. Frankel, possessing a background in both business and the Arts, has a tenured history of expertly managing dermatology groups. For more than eighteen years, he has assisted hundreds of dermatologists to optimize and grow their practices. Mr. Frankel leverages expertise in operations, open-source software literacy, and effective leadership practices, to facilitate system design, lead the growth and recruiting efforts, as well as guide the management team that oversees our successful operation.

A graduate of Pitzer College in California, Andrew was honored with a prestigious Watson Fellowship through which he spent several years conducting cultural research in Nigeria before relocating to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. Following a decade of providing event oversight at the Seattle Center, he founded several arts organizations focused on the Art of West Africa which in time earned the support of the Ford Foundation. In 2017 he was honored with a Nigerian chieftancy title for his work on behalf of African artists.

In 2004, Mr. Frankel accepted an invitation to join a small Georgia-based dermatology group seeking to grow its presence outside of the state. During his tenure, he employed his operational expertise to lead organizational growth resulting in the opening of dozens of locations across 9 states. In 2012, Andrew joined CEO Daniel Shurman M.D. in founding Pennsylvania Dermatology Partners. Spearheading PDP’s system design, management, and operations, Andrew has helped grow the organization from its single 2012 location to twenty eight. Mr. Frankel continues to enjoy his work with Pennsylvania Dermatology Partners as it expands throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.