Startup’s swift action against siloed systems: Finding that ‘single version of truth’ hidden in the data 

This story is possible thanks to Entrepreneurial Growth Ventures (EGV), a business unit of NetWork Kansas supporting innovative, high-growth entrepreneurs in the State of Kansas.

Celerity Enterprises is aiming no lower than industry modernization with its plug-and-play SaaS financial platform — designed to bring clarity to a world of industrial wholesale distribution that often is rooted in competing legacy systems, said founder Megan O’Rear.

Celerity’s platform helps distributors and manufacturers automate the management of special pricing agreements (SPAs), agreements in which distributors sell a product to an end user at a reduced rate, O’Rear said.

Megan O’Rear, Celerity Enterprises

“At the end of each month, [the distributor] has to prove that they sold it to that customer,” she explained. “That requires a tremendous amount of PDFs and Excel spreadsheets going back and forth between thousands of different parties. … What we do is we bring it into a single interface so everyone has a single version of truth.”

That single interface is designed to ultimately reduce siloing, minimize costs, and increase visibility, O’Rear said.

“When we built the system, we really wanted to be agile and agnostic so regardless of your interface, we can bolt onto it without you having to lift a finger, really,” she said. 

Describing Celerity’s software as “plug-and-play,” O’Rear explained that the platform can absorb data from any format without requiring a company to reconfigure its systems.

“Right now, they have a lot of hardware that they have to manage and try to manipulate based on some legacy operating systems,” she said. “With a SaaS platform, it gives us the functionality to not care what system they are on, and also not have the cost burden that many people do with legacy, on-prem systems.”

“That makes it really cost-effective for the [user/client],” O’Rear continued. “It reduces costs for us, and it reduces costs for them, but yet they get this great benefit out of it by having this predictability and immediate financial modeling for what they need.”

Hometown investment

After a few years tapping into the bedrock underlying the Celerity platform, O’Rear said the company is ready to open its pipeline of clients, moving it from the beta testing stage to active customers.

“I’ll be embracing a lot of traffic, getting out there and doing a lot of good stuff, and I’m just excited to inspire and get inspired by our customers,” O’Rear said.

This next step will bring in more opportunities for dialogue with customers, which O’Rear said has been the driving force behind Celerity’s growth and mission.

“Most of the time, the way things come to be is by default, not necessarily by design,” she said. “Many times [as people] we go on our assumptions, because that’s just what we’ve done instead of asking questions in a different way or a different format. What you get out of it when you have an open dialogue is some amazing information.”

The Celerity Enterprises team at the startup’s office in WeWork at lightwell in downtown Kansas City

Celerity Enterprises already has received $3.4 million in funding from notable local investors, including KCRise Fund and Entrepreneurial Growth Ventures, among others.

O’Rear has also participated in the UMKC CEO Roundtable and the Pipeline Entrepreneurs program, she shared, also thanking Angela Hurt, founder and CEO of Veracity Consulting, for helping her to turn the initial idea into reality.

That support from the Kansas City community has validated O’Rear’s decision to move back to her hometown and build her company at home, she said.

“Kansas City has given so much back to me,” O’Rear said. “I went to high school here, then I moved away. Seven years ago I came back and decided that while I was here, I was going to start a business. That has just been the best decision I’ve ever made.”

Demolishing data silos

The Celerity platform is broken down into two core functions: Celerity Rx, a reconciliation engine, and Celerity IQ, a data reporting component.

“The reconciliation process is really the core function,” O’Rear said. “From there, we can take all of those original data points and put them into the Celerity IQ, and that creates just a really dynamic engine of recording capabilities. That’s pretty exciting, because we can help them actually remove other applications because of the strength of our platform.”

Many manufacturers and distributors currently deal with siloed applications and systems as a result of acquisitions, O’Rear said, noting that Celerity’s software allows for unification and easier data reporting.

“We bring all the systems together — financial forecasting, sales enablement, profit margins, overall cost optimization, sales optimization — anything that really impacts their bottom line, they now have actionable items that they can take and utilize,” O’Rear said.

Celerity’s technology also provides comparative capabilities, which empowers data analysts to fulfill more of their job responsibilities and spend less time manually entering figures into spreadsheets, O’Rear said.

“One SPA could be 200,000 line items, and they’re just sitting there entering everything,” she said. “It’s just uber time-consuming. The opportunity to let those people really be data analysts, and move into something that is an opportunity for them, that is rewarding.”

Fittingly, O’Rear noted that Celerity’s mission is focused on solving challenges facing the company’s clients, and said the positive feedback inspires her and her team to keep building.

“Our whole platform is built on taking care of the customer, and listening to customer voice,” she said. “It’s exciting when you can get on a call with them, and they’re like, ‘Wow, you just made my day.’ That’s pretty encouraging.”

Moving beyond legacy

After 17 years in the industrial wholesale distribution industry, O’Rear realized her clients were all facing the same challenges, yet no one seemed to have a solution, she said.

So in December 2019, she invited a number of distributor and manufacturer representatives to a SPA summit in Kansas City to receive feedback on her solution.

“We presented it to the distributor and manufacturer representatives, and they’re like, ‘If you can do it, you’d save me $10 million right now,’” O’Rear recalled.

At that point, O’Rear left her full-time position and began to build what has become Celerity Enterprises, choosing the name celerity because it means “swift movement.” 

The Celerity Enterprises team at the startup’s office in WeWork at lightwell in downtown Kansas City

Several years later, Celerity has grown to include 12 full-time employees and 1 part-time employee, O’Rear said, giving a special nod to Grant Gordon, chief technology officer and co-founder at Celerity.

“My team is exceptional,” she said. “They’re inspired about what we’re building and how we’re building it. They’re inspired that they’re making a difference for businesses and humans every day. They’re great.”

The organization emphasizes four foundational pillars: build a great product, have fun doing it, make money, and give back. Accomplishing those four core challenges will lead to success, O’Rear said.

The founder is also excited to make progress in an industry within which she’s spent so much of her professional career, she said, describing industrial wholesale distribution as a “great industry” that simply needed some help modernizing and moving away from legacy systems.

“It’s not sexy, but it’s foundational,” O’Rear said. “It is the foundation of America, so if we can help them improve their processes and help them with their supply chain solutions, then that’s a great day for everybody.”

This story is made possible by Entrepreneurial Growth Ventures.

Entrepreneurial Growth Ventures (EGV) is a business unit of NetWork Kansas supporting innovative, high-growth entrepreneurs in the State of Kansas. NetWork Kansas promotes an entrepreneurial environment by connecting entrepreneurs and small business owners with the expertise, education and economic resources they need to succeed.