We're now four months into doing the monthly Iowa Startup Power Rankings and I'm tweaking things just a bit. Rather than posting towards the end of the month with a floating time frame for recognition, I've decided to push the publish date until after the first of the month. That means that we'll be able to consistently recognize the efforts of the people and companies in our community from the calendar month prior. Also, it means that this post isn't technically late even though today is August 3rd and the post is about July (when all else fails, change the rules). For that reason, the subject of the post refers to July/August. The next post will be the September Power Rankings but will refer to activity in August.
Click here for last month's rankings. And, as always, here are the rules.
July/August Power Rankings
1. Igor (Johnston)
This is Igor's first appearance in the power rankings
The top spot this month goes to Igor, a power-over-ethernet, startup located in Johnston. The company announced that they hired a new CEO, Steven L'Heureux, to complement founder Dwight Stewart. Oh, and they also completed a $2MM Series B lead by CMA Ventures per Crunchbase.
To date, Igor has raised a total of nearly $6MM, according to The Register.
2. Pear Deck (Iowa City)
This is Pear Deck's first appearance in the power rankings
Iowa City-based edtech company Pear Deck is up next with the news that they had recently added a new sales center in Kansas City. According to SPN, the KC team is currently comprised of two people is expected to double or triple by the end of the year. More KC staffing is expected in 2017. The company also shared that revenue has tripled in the last year and that their 99% of the customers renewed in the company's first "renewal season".
3. WorkHound (Des Moines)
This is WorkHound's first appearance in the power rankings
WorkHound, a truck driver retention platform, takes the third spot this month after they departed Des Moines for sunny Chattanooga and the goodness that is the Dynamo Accelerator and a cohort of "logistics-focused" startups. This is the second accelerator for WorkHound, who are also graduates of the 2015 cohort at Straight Shot in Omaha. You can follow along on WorkHound's journey on co-founder Max Farrell's Medium. Demo Day is October 4.
4. UpCraft Club (Des Moines)
This is UpCraft Club's third month in the power rankings.
Digital sewing pattern marketplace UpCraft Club is back in the Power Rankings this month after taking a break in June. That break was to be allowed, of course, since founder Elizabeth Caven was traveling abroad on behalf of the Small Business Administration and representing the American startup community at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) "Women and the Economy" Forum in Lima, Peru.
While at the forum, Elizabeth participated in an international pitch competition sponsored by the Russian delegation. As to be expected with UpCraft Club, she took home the prize for "‘Highest Growth Opportunity". Read more about it in her guest post here on the Gravitate blog.
5. Full Time Founders' Meetup (Des Moines)
This is the Full Time Founders' Meetup first appearance in the power rankings.
I'm still super jazzed about the inaugural Full Time Founders Meetup that we held in Des Moines on July 20 so I'm included it here in the fifth spot this month. I wrote quite a bit about it here in the summary post for the whole Paul Singh Iowa Tech Tour. As I put in that post, my lead takeaway from that was "Do this again. Do this regularly." and we'll do just that. Look for more information soon.
Geoff Wood is the founder, connector and space captain at Gravitate, a workplace community for entrepreneurs, freelancers and remote workers in the heart of downtown Des Moines. In addition to writing here, he hosts a podcast, speaks at conferences, organizes events and has been helping tell the story of the Iowa startup community since 2009.