Local weight lifting tech firm Rack Performance lands $250K
May 29, 2015 | Bobby Burch
A Lenexa-based tech company is racking up investment capital to further develop its weight room management software.
Rack Performance recently raised $250,000 from local, private investors that will help the company advance the second version of its software.
Rack Performance built a web-based, weight room and group fitness platform to help coaches and trainers efficiently manage their teams while exercising. The platform’s audio-visual timers help team members quickly transition between exercises, giving such information as the time to spend on an exercise, how to do it and when to change exercises.
“As a high school coach, you’re one person managing up to 60 people at potentially 20 stations,” Rack CEO Matt Sellers said. “You’re spending most of your time being a tempo manager, and not teaching technique or motivating. Our goal is to let you focus more on communicating with athletes, motivating them and teaching technique. ”
Founded in 2013, Rack performance now has six full-time employees and is planning a product update with its new investment capital. Sellers said that most of his clientele is located in Kansas and Missouri, but has expanded across the nation.
A former football coach, Sellers said that strength trainers have offered him positive feedback on how it affects their ability to manage team members.
“The overwhelming censuses is that once they used it they don’t want to go back,” Sellers said. “It’s a career extender and it gives them more energy in the weight room to be able to focus on teaching and motivating instead of everyday just being a time keeper.”

2015 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Crema apprenticeship effort aims to decode a more inclusive talent pool
Crema’s recent growth means more than an additional Crossroads office space for the startup, said Gabby Brotherton. It provides bandwidth for the firm to supplement Kansas City’s tech talent with a new apprenticeship program. “[Crema is] very much a company that values collaboration and innovation learning,” said Brotherton, marketing specialist at the software development firm.…
Biopesticide AgTech building toward RNAissance with TechAccel cultivation
KC-based TechAccel endeavors to guide startups through “the valley of death” stage that emerges after ideation, but before traction, said Brad Fabbri, noting the firm’s new venture, RNAissance Ag, is expected to disrupt the ag tech industry with environmentally-safe biopesticides. “We try to find products and help develop them to make [farmers’] lives easier and…
Digital Sandbox charges three new startups with its proof-of-concept challenge
An effort to elevate Kansas City’s creative minds, Digital Sandbox KC is digging deeper in its sixth year of acceleration — adding three new startups to its portfolio, the proof-of-concept program announced this week. “Our initial goal was to find 10 early-stage concepts that had high-growth potential and help them secure follow-on funding,” said Jeff Shackelford,…
KCultivator Q&A: Donald Hawkins chews on sage advice, blood sausage, ‘circle of giving’
Editor’s note: KCultivators is a lighthearted profile series to highlight people who are meaningfully enriching Kansas City’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Founders should rally around Kansas City’s startup ecosystem like fans rallied around the Chiefs, said Donald Hawkins. “If you look at a lot of the companies that have scaled — there’s a huge connection gap between…
