PayIt’s iKan app named a finalist in Fast Company 2019 Innovation by Design honors
September 10, 2019 | Tommy Felts
Kansas City’s PayIt isn’t just worthy of investment — its foundational technology continues to win awards alongside the likes of Nike, Microsoft and Mastercard, said John Thomson.
Fast Company honored iKan — a PayIt-powered app that allows Kansas residents to pay vehicle registration renewals, renew their driver’s license (the country’s first-ever mobile driver’s license renewal service), and order vital records (birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates) — during its Innovation by Design Awards for 2019 in the Apps & Games category.
Alexandru Otrezov, John Thomson, and Mike Plunkett, PayIt
“A cloud-native platform, PayIt was first in market to deliver a wallet citizens can use to simplify access to government services, an Amazon-like experience,” said Thomson, PayIt co-founder and CEO.
Click here to learn more about iKan.
Innovation by Design is the only competition to honor creative work at the intersection of design, business, and innovation, according to the Kansas City startup. This year’s applicant pool was the most competitive, with more than 4,300 entries. PayIt was among 483 honored projects, products, and services.
“We care deeply about supporting the mission of government and making government smarter, more modern, more transparent and more connected,” said Thomson. “Our approach is unique in this market and frankly our team has done an amazing job of delivering consumer grade omni channel experiences via an enterprise grade platform. All of which is serving to transform the GovTech market!”
PayIt’s partnership with the State of Kansas helped the startup deliver a local reference point as its business expanded across the nation, now serving some of the largest entities in state and local government, he added.
In March, PayIt banked a more than $100 million investment from Insight Partners, then a $25 million follow-on investment from Weatherford Capital in May.
Such milestones of progress for PayIt reflect a changing space for tech startups, said Alexandru Otrezov, PayIt’s newly announced chief marketing officer.
“It’s a new era out there for companies that are created by demand,” he said. “It’s not just ‘I have a great idea and I’m going to put it out there. I need a great marketer to sell it.’ People need something, so companies provide the solution. Look at Netflix, Uber, Tesla. They’re all created because customers demanded those products.”
PayIt is an example, Otrezov said, of a startup built to ease pain points as old as government itself.
Tommy Felts
Tommy is editor-in-chief for Startland News, a Kansas City-based nonprofit newsroom that uses storytelling to elevate the region’s startup community of entrepreneurs, innovators, hustlers, creatives and risk-takers.
Under Tommy’s leadership, Startland News has expanded its coverage from a primarily high-tech, high-growth focus to a more wide-ranging and inclusive look at the faces of entrepreneurism, innovation and business.
Before joining Startland News in 2017, Tommy worked for 12 years as an award-winning newspaper journalist, designer, editor and publisher. He was named one of Editor & Publisher magazine’s top “25 Under 35” in 2014.
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