Life Time Fitness buys Massage Retreat & Spa

Life Time has acquired Massage Retreat & Spa, a seven-location company founded by former Life Time employee Lee Oberg.

"We saw an opportunity to further extend our spa business and massage services, specifically, right here in our home (and largest) market by adding these Massage Retreat locations to our overall portfolio of destinations, brands, products and services," said a Life Time spokesman.

Life Time, which declined to disclose terms, said it will maintain Massage Retreat & Spa as a separate company. The approximately 130 employees will go through Life Time's new-hire process and background check. Oberg is expected to remain with the company.

Life Time's existing spa business, LifeSpa, offers full-service hair, nail and skin-care, massage and medispa services. According to Life Time, LifeSpa is the largest full-service spa-salon operator in North America. There are 132 Life Time Athletic locations and 113 LifeSpa locations.

Oberg had planned to grow his company by selling more franchise locations. But Massage Retreat hasn't added a new spa location since it opened its Woodbury outlet in June 2013. It hasn't sold a franchise location since it sold the Maple Grove spa, which it opened in 2013, to a franchisee in 2015.

According to a June 2017 filing with the Minnesota Department of Commerce, Massage Retreat's registration as a franchiser was canceled after it failed to file a required annual report by April 30, 2017.

Life Time said Massage Retreat & Spa customers should expect business as usual. Life Time plans to keep the current branding and services and may add additional spa and rejuvenation services at these locations.

Insite Software has received a $1.5 million follow-on investment to the $15 million it received in 2015, primarily from Volition Capital of Boston, as well as members of its management team.

Insite, with 70 employees based in the North Loop, said it has profitably grown customer-subscription revenue 300 percent over the past three years and doubled the number of new customers since last summer as it has moved to a cloud-based software-as-a-service model over its previous "on-premise software platform" that had to be updated periodically on customer servers.

Insite specializes in business-to-business software for manufacturers, distributors and others.

CEO Steve Shaffer said: "We're experiencing even more success as a result of the strategy to shift our focus from the traditional perpetual on-premise software platform to a Cloud SaaS subscription, making Insite's value, and best-in-class technology, more accessible for midsized companies."

Shaffer, CEO since 2016, has been a board member since 2013, when he invested about $1 million in Insite with fellow board member Ken Holec.

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Man Cave Craft Eats has renamed itself Mighty Spark Food Co. in hopes of appealing to a broader audience (read: women).

The fast-growing craft meats company in Minneapolis wants the new brand to position it as a "better-for-you" option in the meat aisle. "In the meat department, it seems like everyone is trying to be the oldest butcher on the block," said CEO Nick Beste. "No one is speaking to today's consumer. We are trying to be the modern meat company."

Mighty Spark has grown 700 percent so far this year (from October through April) and is in more than 5,000 stores across America, including Krogers, Costco, Publix, Target, Albertsons, Cub Foods and Hy-Vee.

In addition to this month's rebranding, Mighty Spark is rolling out a number of new products aimed at health-conscious meat eaters. They include turkey burgers, ground chicken, patties that are half meat, half grain and jerky-like low-calorie chicken sticks.

"This will be the first year we will have a really big presence in the local market," Beste said.

Beste said the company stands outs in two ways: its one-for-one program and its small-batch approach.

For every Mighty Spark product purchased, the company's Bite Back initiative donates one meal to a charity partner dedicated to feeding hungry children.

The company still makes everything in small batches of 300 to 500 pounds at a time.