The below feature in this week’s Wichita Business Journal lists six local startups to watch in 2022. Three of those six are members at Groover Labs. Read about our members below, and read the entire article at the business journal by clicking here.
Six Wichita Startups to Watch in 2022
Entrepreneurial stakeholders say 2021 helped streamline and bolster local resources that could make Wichita a startup hub.
And while Wichita-based startups are increasingly taking advantage of the local scene, the bigger future could be now for several young companies.
From hiring and training to construction and financial literacy, technology and the world’s adaptation to life in a pandemic are driving ideas and operations into a new year and priming several local entrepreneurs for major potential growth in the year ahead.
Here are six Wichita startups to watch in 2022:
PLOT
Founder: Chris Callen
Website: www.getplot.com
Differentiator: A technology platform billed as boosting simplifying and enhancing the communication process on construction projects.
Any startup idea that grows out of Koch Industries Inc. is bound to raise eyebrows.
That was case for PLOT, a construction communication platform that in November announced that Wichita-based Koch had joined Indianapolis-based High Alpha Innovation as pre-seed investors in the company.
“It’s all about elevating the industry to be a little bit more efficient and collaborative and accepting of new technology tools,” PLOT’s co-founder and construction-industry veteran, Chris Callen, said last fall.
Similar collaboration between Koch and High Alpha helped define the early concept of PLOT last year, priming the company for growth in 2022.
Plans this year include hiring for engineering talent and engaging a client base to provide feedback on the platform.
The business could provide remote work opportunities for those engineers, while construction contractors, which can connect with PLOT via its website, will help build out a product Callen sees has having industry-changing potential.
“Construction technologies … have often focused too much on documents and processes rather than the teams and people in them,” Callen said. “In building PLOT, we’ve expanded our focus to the lifeblood of a construction site — the workers and their teams — who have never had a software built to fully address their communication needs.”
Knowledge As A Service
Founders: Robert Feeney and B.W. Barkley
Website: www.ringorang.com
Differentiator: KAAS’ Ringorang app is a training platform that allows employers to continually boost employee proficiency.
Knowledge As A Service (KAAS) has put itself on a path to be a company helping build Wichita’s technology workforce by helping all industries build up employee skills.
After landing its operations in Wichita in 2021, the company expects its Ringorang human behavioral training app to help power it to continued growth in 2022.
“When we came here from Silicon Valley, we made a commitment to be all-in on Wichita, growing our company, our product and making a difference in the startup community here,” COO B.W. Barkley said.
KAAS announced plans in June 2021 to move its operations to Wichita and hire around 40 workers over the next 12 months.
The company ended 2021 by signing a lease for its headquarters in Garvey Center and continue to interface with potential customers for whom KAAS leaders think their training app will boost everything from worker efficiency to workplace safety.
It has also helped pioneer crowd-funding for a startup locally — possibly helping craft a financing blueprint other Wichita companies can use — as its Wefunder campaign is helping raise the capital to create the new jobs.
Quick Hire
Founders: Angela Muhwezi-Hall and Deborah Gladney
Website: www.getquickhire.com
Differentiator: A hiring app uses swipe technology to quickly match employers and job seekers.
QuickHire rolls in 2022 in a growth mode, on the back of exploding demand from the skilled trade and service sectors for which its hiring app is catered.
The company was founded in 2020 by Wichita sisters Deborah Gladney and Angela Muhwezi-Hall who, last year, became the first Black women entrepreneurs in Kansas to raise more than $1 million in seed funding.
By the end of last year, QuickHire had amassed more than 60 company customers and had reached more than 11,000 job seekers on its platform.
Eyeing continued demand for labor, particularly within the restaurant industry, the company in 2022 expects continued growth that will target Wichita and Kansas City, though regional growth throughout the Midwest is also expected.
That growth will also include a new scheduling feature for customers and the recent addition to the QuickHire team of Doo-Dah Diner co-owner Timirie Shibley as the company’s partnership manager.
The QuickHire story has also been highlighted by media outlets ranging from The Guardian to Forbes, raising the profile of a business that became as an early pandemic pivot by its founding sisters.
“QuickHire is bigger than just an HR technology company,” Gladney says. “We’re underserved founders helping underserved workers in an underserved market.”