Three startup companies plan to relocate to Baltimore and become a part of the city's thriving technology scene.
The CEOs of Sparen Homes, SportsHi and Zimbali Network decided to plant their roots in Baltimore after graduating from the Techstars Equitech Accelerator. UpSurge Baltimore, an organization that aims to make Baltimore a top-tier tech city with inclusiveness and equity in mind, sponsored the 13-week program.
While the CEOs come from different backgrounds and each of their companies operates in different industries, they share two things in common: They all want to make the world a better place by making it more equitable and they all want Baltimore to be the place where they accomplish their goals. It's the latest demonstration of how Baltimore has become one of the preeminent destinations for fast-growing tech companies despite its continued challenges with crime and a reputation for not being business-friendly.
Baltimore's tech sector is coming off its biggest year ever in terms of raising venture capital. Baltimore-area companies set a record in 2021 with 78 deals raising more than $768 million in venture capital, compared to 74 deals raising nearly $510 million in 2020.
Monica Wheat, managing director of the Techstars Equitech Accelerator, said having three founders see the benefits of putting down roots in Baltimore will help achieve the program's goal of establishing the first "equitech city" in the U.S.
“We know Baltimore has a lot to offer and while getting founders to stay and build their startups in the city is not the accelerator’s main goal, it was certainly one of the indirect benefits that UpSurge Baltimore and I hoped to achieve when we built this program," Wheat said.
Here's a look at each of the three companies moving to Baltimore and why they decided to move here:
Sparen Homes
Paris Dean describes Sparen Homes as "Amazon for real estate." He founded the company in April 2020 not long after the Covid-19 pandemic began as a birthday present to himself.
Sparen Homes is an online marketplace that uses artificial intelligence to automate real estate transactions. Dean said the platform allows everything related to a transaction to be done in one place and eliminates the need for real estate agent intermediaries, which could lead to "massive savings" for buyers and sellers.
"The seller doesn't have to pay agent fees; they just pay us a one-time listing fee of $1,000," Dean said. "On the buyer side, that's where the most ridiculous savings are because there's no interest."
The company did a beta launch in 2020 and completed more than $112 million in real estate transactions in less than 90 days, Dean said. Sparen Homes has more than $1.9 billion in real estate committed to the platform over the next three years and is discussing a potential license to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Dean plans to move Sparen Homes from Detroit to Baltimore because of the opportunities he sees for the company to be located closer to New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. He had never been to Baltimore before participating in the Techstars accelerator said he has found the community to be "a lot more welcoming than in other cities."
"It's definitely a great place for me to set up the next chapter of my company," Dean said.
He hasn't decided where exactly yet in the city to relocate the company. Dean said he has visited Spark Baltimore's coworking space at Power Plant Live as well as Emerging Technology Centers near Highlandtown.
Sparen Homes currently has six or seven employees, but if it accomplishes Dean's dreams, then Baltimore will get a big winner. He said he expects the company to grow to $400 million in annual revenue within the next few years.
SportsHi
The "aha moment" for Alex Miles to start SportsHi came when he was coaching a girls rugby team in Harlem, New York.
Miles, a former professional rugby player from Sydney, Australia, moved to New York several years ago to get into the tech industry. He also volunteered his time as a rugby coach. He helped connect some of the players to opportunities at Brown University and came up with the idea for his company, SportsHi.
The company operates an app that helps connect students to colleges and career opportunities. It makes money by charging organizations to come onto app and connect with students.
Soon to be renamed BreakThru, the company's app has been downloaded by more than 65,000 students and reaches about 5 million people per month through social media and online advertising. Miles said about 60% of the app's users are female and 75% are people of color.
Like Dean, Miles had never been to Baltimore before participating in the accelerator. In fact, he said he had never even seen "The Wire." Friends of his who are fans of the show, which focused on the illegal drug trade, warned him about going to Baltimore beforehand. Miles said he came away impressed by the city during the program. So much so that he plans to relocate his company from Brooklyn.
"You guys don't have a retention problem, you've got an acquisition problem," said Miles, who is moving to Fells Point at the end of March.
SportsHi currently has six full-time employees with plans to continue hiring throughout the year. Miles said he plans to hire from within Baltimore and does not worry about crime issues. In fact, he said Baltimore reminds him of his home country.
"Just the passion, man," Miles said. "Australians are inherently very passionate and we punch above our weight because we have a chip on our shoulder. All that I just described is just like Baltimore. The people from Baltimore have this chip, a strong sense of community and they punch above their weight."
Zimbali Networks
Cylton Collymore wants to change the way people across the world get access to money.
Collymore came up with the idea for his financial technology company, Zimbali Networks, in 2015 and founded the company in 2017. The D.C.-based startup began to grow in earnest in 2019. Zimbali's platform allows people across the world to buy and sell with each other or save and lend safely without the help of a bank. Collymore used to be a foreign service officer in South Africa and has previously worked for the Federal Reserve, Facebook and the U.S. Department of State.
The company's Justpayme app, which has yet to launch, is similar to Venmo or Cash, but will allow people to send or receive money in countries where those apps can't be used. In a place such as Mexico, for example, Collymore said the primary options are to use services from Western Union or MoneyGram. In a place like Rwanda, he said the only option is to wire money and that takes three days.
Collymore said Zimbali could have been useful when the U.S. evacuated Afghanistan last year. There were Afghani people who worked for the U.S. but couldn't receive payments because traditional banking services in the country did not function. Collymore said Zimbali could have made such transactions possible.
Unlike the other entrepreneurs, Collymore is familiar with Baltimore because he has lived in Maryland since 1996. During his participation in the accelerator he decided Zimbali should move to Baltimore because the city represents much of what the company hopes to achieve. Some neighborhoods in Baltimore lack access to capital or financial services. Collymore said Zimbali can help close that gap.
"Baltimore, being a rising environment on the East Coast that we're familiar with and we know has the same issues as the other places we could serve, is the perfect place with the right potential employee base...to put our business," Collymore said. "We understand the impact that can have socially, economically and politically being able to place something as global as Zimbali [in Baltimore]."
Quick access to Interstate 95, the proximity to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, a lower cost of living and a plethora of universities and research institutions are all things that make Baltimore an attractive place to be, Colleymore said.
Zimbali currently has about 10 employees and plans to hire 20 to 25 more workers over the next 12 months.
"We can see where the growth in the city is going to come from and we want to be a part of that," Collymore said.
