Officials at StartupCity Des Moines today announced via its blog that two of its resident companies—PhoneBank.org and Staff Ninja—will be leaving the incubator.
After just more than six months as a StartupCity Des Moines resident, PhoneBank will be relocating its operations to New York City. After its launch in December of last year, the startup joined the incubator in February.
PhoneBank’s co-founder Zach Edwards told Silicon Prairie News that his business partner Virginia Davies, who lives in New York City, will be taking over many of the startup’s day-to-day operations while he steps back to act as an adviser to the company.
“Basically we’re trying to penetrate the New York and Washington D.C. markets because a lot of our clients are out of there,” Edwards said. Edwards will remain in Des Moines, but says PhoneBank will be looking for an organizer on the ground in New York City to help the company scale.
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Andy Brudtkuhl‘s company Staff Ninja also will be exiting the incubator. According to the StartupCity Des Moines blog, Brudtkuhl “recently had to step away from SCDSM in order to focus more on his consulting work.” While Staff Ninja will continue to operate for the time being, Brudtkuhl will continue working through “potential integrations or will consider winding it down, depending on progress.”
With these exits, five startups remain in the space. Two of them—Rocket Referrals and Poster Zen—are fairly recent additions to StartupCity Des Moines.