2021 Startups to Watch: Replica spins out job creation as urban planning goes data dense
January 13, 2021 | Tommy Felts and Austin Barnes
Editor’s note: Startland News selected 10 Kansas City firms to spotlight for its annual Startups to Watch list. The following is one of 2021’s companies. Click here to view the full, ranked list of Startups to Watch — presented by sponsors Husch Blackwell and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
Rapidly scaling Replica won’t slow down in 2021, Nick Bowden said, teasing a year that’s expected to be driven by widespread team growth — at a time when job creation couldn’t be more critical.
Elevator pitch: Replica is an enterprise data platform that delivers critical insights about the built environment — across people, mobility, economic activity, and land use.
• Founders: Nick Bowden, Alexei Pozdnukhov, Brett Naul, Kael Greco
• Founding year: 2019
• Amount raised to date: $11 million
• Noteworthy investors: Innovation Endeavors, Firebrand, Rise of the Rest
• Programs completed: None
• Current employee count: 41
“Because we’ve grown so fast, we can’t hire fast enough,” Bowden, CEO and co-founder, said of the Alphabet-born company’s scale up phase and what it could mean for the local and distributed workforce in the months ahead.
Click here to read more about the birth of Replica and how it was spun out of Alphabet in 2019.
“I’ve been here six years, but in the Midwest most of my life,” the founder and former CEO of mySidewalk and former head of Model Lab for Sidewalk Labs said. “We want to do whatever we can to advance the startup scene here and provide an opportunity for people to work at a company that may have historically been based only in the bay area.”
The company hopes to at least double its team in 2021, Bowden said, which currently is spread across Overland Park, California, Utah, Colorado, and New York (where an official office is planned post-pandemic).
“Pre-pandemic, the Bay area had, arguably, the best concentration of talent for really, really technically advanced work. But having a Kansas City office and being headquartered here and having an East Coast presence, it allows us to tap into a much wider talent pool,” he explained.
“Our offices are pretty cross-functional. You’ve got technical folks in Kansas City, non-technical folks in the bay area. My guess is we’ll [remain] pretty distributed.”
Click here to explore current job openings at Replica or to submit your resume for future consideration.
Such an increase in talent could also double revenue potential for the urban planning-focused SaaS platform — an operation that’s seen significant growth as a result of needs uncovered by the COVID-era.
“We’re a data platform for the build environment. When people stop moving or there are such volatile changes in movement, spending, land use — turns out that public agencies kind of have a desperate need to understand what’s happening,” he said in example of ways Replica has grown its customer base in recent months.
Bowden said 2021 stands to see the startup secure partnerships in more than half of the nation’s top 100 cities as it works to establish itself as one of the fastest growing enterprise SaaS companies in existence.
“We’ve grown exceptionally fast, even by fast-growing startup terms,” he said, adding fuel from its early days inside of Alphabet has certainly helped position the company for success.
“We’ve been remarkably fortunate in that regard. I don’t know if there’s ever been a more important time to work with the public sector, but a lot of the work we do is very much in service of trying to build and enable cities to be more friendly, equitable, accessible.”
The Kansas City Startups Watch in 2021 list is made possible by presenting sponsors Husch Blackwell, a value-driven law firm with offices in Kansas City, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, though independently produced by Startland News.
1) TripleBlind
2) LaborChart
3) Bar K
4) Ronawk
5) SureShow
6) Daupler
7) PMI Rate Pro
8) Scissors & Scotch
9) Replica
10) The Market Base
Startups to Watch is now in its sixth year, thanks to ongoing support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a private, nonpartisan foundation that works together with communities in education and entrepreneurship to create uncommon solutions and empower people to shape their futures and be successful.
For more information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn
Featured Business
2021 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
KC mom turns entrepreneur to help kiddo’s kidney condition
In 2013, Tamra Johnson’s daughter faced a life-or-death situation. After contracting an E. coli bacterial infection, Johnson’s daughter, Maleena, lost function to both of her kidneys. Fortunately, a kidney transplant from Maleena’s father, Jamie, saved her life, but it created a new problem: hydration. Maleena was expected to drink over four liters of water per…
Focused on KC, the Lean Lab welcomes five new ed tech startups
The Lean Lab, a Kansas City-based education tech accelerator, is returning for its fourth year with a new approach that aims to be more community focused and sophisticated. During a Tuesday event, the Lean Lab announced the five new startups in its 2017 cohort at a breakfast at the recently renovated Corrigan Station. Katie Boody,…
Innovation coach Diana Kander: Failure is an option
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone. Yes, you could fail, and it would be embarrassing. People would talk about it. People you know. But let’s be honest, they’re only trying to reassure themselves about the risk-averse choices they’ve made. Yes, you could fail, and it could get you fired. I’m…
Smart City update: Living Lab set to launch, TV show may highlight KC innovation
Bob Bennett, chief innovation officer at the City of Kansas City, Mo., said Kansas City has championed itself as a leader in big data and smart city tech for years now. But now the city is reaching an inflection point to leverage the data at a significant scale, he said. “The bottom line is that…