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.

Kansas City is the perfect testing ground for EB Systems’ electronic beacon technology, said Jonathan Ruiz, noting lessons from the spring 2023 NFL Draft, as well as the city’s highly-anticipated host duties for the coming Copa America games in 2024 and World Cup games in 2026.

“It’s super fortunate that we’re here in KC,” said Ruiz, CEO of EB Systems. “We’re in the right place, right time.”

He and co-founder Brendan Waters have been working in different aspects of electronic beacon technology since 2015, Ruiz continued. But it’s only since relaunching their event technology platform over the past year that EB Systems has really taken off.

In February 2020, the co-founders started to gain momentum around crowd tracking and used their technology at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade. But then the pandemic shut down large events for a while.

“It was almost a blessing in disguise for us,” Ruiz explained. “It made us sort of regroup and refocus and we were able to use our intellectual property to do things like contact tracing and emergency management systems. It really helped solidify our technology to capitalize on this opportunity with large scale events that are back and bigger than ever.”

“Even some of those leads that we had in 2020 are coming to fruition now,” Waters added. “And it’s really expanding from there.”

EB Systems — a winner of the 2022 LaunchKC grants competition — uses mobile apps, proximity-based sensors and wearable Bluetooth devices to create real-time location, reporting, and alerting systems.

RELATED: This startup’s AI, Bluetooth tech could push traffic to businesses, boost equity when World Cup comes to KC

Crowd flow at events raises a lot of questions, Ruiz noted. Sure, event managers will know how many tickets were sold or how many participants signed up for an event, but the impact is bigger than just their footprint.

“With our technology, we’re able to quantify for event planners, and quantify for their big brand sponsors who want to know how many people walked by my booth or my sign,” he explained. “It’s almost like we’re doing website impressions but for the physical world, and so people are really excited about that.”

“We’re providing that data that they don’t currently have without infringing on anyone’s privacy,” Waters added.

But they aren’t just using the technology to collect data, shared Ruiz, a member of the 2023 Pipeline fellowship. EB Systems can also connect with the crowd, using its Bluetooth technology to do proximity-based engagements and promotions.

“We’re talking like real-time scavenger hunts and tour guides,” he added. “So we’re getting to that point.”

Jonathan Ruiz, EB Systems, 2023 Pure Pitch Rally; photo by Taylor Wilmore, Startland News

In the past year, EB Systems — which won $14,000 at the 2023 Pure Pitch Rally — has started to gain traction with large-scale events, Ruiz and Waters said, deploying their beacons at the NFL Draft and Chicago Marathon, plus helping the City Market, the Crossroads, and the City of Dallas gather data for economic development.

“It just gave us more legitimacy,” Ruiz continued. “When we were at the Michelob Ultra beer truck at the Chicago Marathon and I pulled up our dashboard estimating how many people walked by their booth, it’s like I invented fire in front of their eyes. They were like, ‘What? We’ve always wanted this; we need this.’”

Ruiz and Waters plan to begin 2024 by using their technology at the CES conference in Las Vegas, they shared, and then focus on events like the London Marathon, Chicago Marathon (and other tertiary events), and the Copa America in Kansas City.

Plus they want to continue to build partnerships locally within Kansas City and push forward with Phase 2 of connecting with crowds.

“It’s great that we’re becoming synonymous with these massive events,” Ruiz added.

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.

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