On Thursday, Kansas City based Replica announced via blog post that it had moved from a product of Sidewalk Labs (in the Model Lab) to a separate company, called Replica. The company also announced that it had raised $11 million in venture funding.
In the blog post, Nick Bowden, Replica’s CEO and co-founder explained how his company went from a project to a company, “The result of [the] work is Replica, which is focused on helping public agencies better understand the movement of people and goods. Replica is a user-friendly modeling tool that uses de-identified mobile location data to give public agencies a comprehensive portrait of how, when, and why people travel.”
In his post, Bowden explained: “At the heart of these challenges is a lack of insight into the complex interdependencies between transportation and land use. Public agencies face an incomplete picture of city movement patterns, which can lead to a lower confidence in critical transportation and land use decisions. New mobility, rising housing costs, and aging infrastructure have accelerated the urgency to find better solutions.”
The announcement included the significant news that Replica had raised $11 million to facilitate hiring in both their Kansas City and San Francisco offices. The funding was provided by Innovation Endeavors, Firebrand Ventures, and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.
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John Fein of Firebrand Ventures was excited about the investment stating: “I’ve had the good fortune to know Nick for several years through the Kansas City community and we’re thrilled to have the chance to invest in him and his amazing team. It’s a rare opportunity to invest in a team like this that’s also a spin out from a major tech company like Alphabet. The fact that Kansas City is their headquarters made it a perfect fit for Firebrand. We’re also very excited to co-invest with fantastic people – Eric Schmidt and his partners at Innovation Endeavors as well as Revolution’s Rise of the Rest fund.”
Firebrand has reason to be excited for Kansas City. This is yet another nice funding for Kansas City which has now had five companies raise more than $10 million dollars this year. This brings the annual total over $350 million in equity capital raised in the region.
For more information about the company, check out their website at www.replicahq.com.
