Editor’s note: Startland News editors selected 10 Kansas City scaling businesses to spotlight for its annual Startups to Watch list. Now in its ninth year, this feature recognizes founders and startups that editors believe will make some of the biggest, most compelling news in the coming 12 months. The following is one of 2024’s companies.

Click here to view the full list of Startups to Watch — presented with support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and independently produced by Startland News.

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When Holly Andra Small and Neelima Parasker launched Lotus TMS in April 2023, the duo hoped to introduce a game-changing solution to a persistent problem in the intermodal trucking sector. 

Their innovative transportation management system allows for intermodal trucking companies to streamline their operations with ease, marking a significant advancement in the industry.

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Elevator pitch: Designed for drayage companies, by a drayage company with more than 45 years industry experience, Lotus TMS was developed by one of the best technology companies in the business. Our first version focuses on the industry’s most immediate need: the intermodal sector of trucking.

• Founders: Neelima Parasker, Holly Andra Small
• Headquarters: Kansas City, Missouri
• Founding year: 2023
• Current employee count: 5 
• Funding amount raised to date: N/A
• Noteworthy investors:  N/A
• Noteworthy programs completed: LaunchKC

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“There’s a lot of different legs to the journey of intermodal freight. Trucking needs really incredible resources to help manage all of that, and it just didn’t exist,” said Small, calling existing systems “archaic and difficult to use.”

With a family legacy in intermodal trucking since 1977, Small observed the complexity of transferring containers from trains and ships to truckloads. She recognized the overdue need for an efficient operations system, so she set out to create her own.

“It’s complicated, and the intermodal industry developers couldn’t handle it,” said Small.

Her partnership with Parasker, founder of Overland Park-based SnapIT Solutions, bringing tech expertise to the table, became the breakthrough to turning her vision into reality.

“(Parasker’s team is) so gifted and talented. This is a true partnership of minds coming together,” said Small.

“A lot of systems that were previously built were done with very little user interface, feedback, and design thinking,” added Parasker, building on the challenge Small detailed. 

Likening the user experience of previous systems to a “square peg in a round hole,” Parasker too saw operators struggle with untouched, outdated systems built decades ago with limited efficiency. 

“(Developers) never touched it because it’s complicated, and it’s always compliance driven. But based on how they’ve created the product, they created the problem themselves,” said Parasker.

Seeing their partnership as a yin-yang — Small contributing her intermodal trucking knowledge, while Parasker, a mechanical engineer, manages logistics — they developed a solution together.

“We have a very good balance of strengths, but then we can also come together to build,” said Small.

“You can’t just be tech or just intermodal, you have to be able to speak both languages, and that’s why it hasn’t been done before,” added Parasker.

2023 LaunchKC staff and winners; photo by Mark McDonald, Downtown Council

Neelima Parasker and Holly Andra Small, Lotus TMS, at the 2023 LaunchKC reveal celebration; photo by Tommy Felts, Startland News

With trucking offering just a 3 percent profit margin, drivers are watching their money closely to ensure operations are running smoothly, Parasker and Small said, recognizing how Lotus TMS could factor in, easily connecting with pay and invoice management systems like Quickbooks.

“That’s why we were able to create a successful system, because we have the ability to zoom out, see the problem, and take it down into tangible modules that are truly needed within the business,” said Small.

Container management of the entire load from Point A to Point B is also managed within Lotus TMS, making the system an easy-to-use, one-stop shop for drivers onboarding. 

“The 27-year-old to the 70-year-old in the office can all learn it and do it for a half an hour, and that’s all they need to do,” said Small. 

With a product in place, Parasker and Small believe they are ready to scale to partnerships with several intermodal trucking companies.

The pair also envision their system targeting large trucking companies, aiming to offer services for enterprises that might currently lack the capability for intermodal operations.

An IOS mobile app version of Lotus TMS is also on the way, Parasker and Small teased, making the system even more accessible for drivers.

“The industry will always need us, even though technology needs to be updated and kept abreast, most of the hard work is done,” said Parasker.

“The foundation we have is great,”  Small added.

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Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2024

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Startups to Watch is possible thanks to 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