An early-stage tech company looking to change the way people communicate with friends and family moved its headquarters to Charlotte from Raleigh at the end of last year.
Emspire Group's headquarters is now in the Tryon Plaza building at 112 S. Tryon St. in uptown. The office is located on the 15th level, which is the Bridge Incubator floor.
Established in 2018, the company moved to Charlotte as it is looking to grow, particularly the customer-base of its online marketing platform, emstory, said Alexander Lendl, CEO and founder. The application allows users to create video messages that can be made and shared with friends or colleagues.
How does it work? Customers can upload the pictures and videos they'd like to use from their collection; customize the emstory with a voiceover, text, music and other editing features; invite family, colleagues and friends to add their videos to the emstory; and then share the emstory on any social media platform.
The company also has an emstory UGC platform, which is designed for user-generated content. Entrepreneurs can join emstory to share testimonials of their products on social media channels and help attract interested customers.
Lendl said Charlotte was the right transition for the company as the area provides for more fundraising and networking opportunities.
"It's working very good," he said on how the company's move has progressed. "We have better networks in Charlotte, and it was easier to grow and get into different communities."
Emspire had been growing the company through bootstrapping, which worked for its needs over the last few years, but Lendl said it is ready to move onto raising capital to expand more significantly.
The company has three full-time employees and two leaders, Lendl and Brad Lienhardt, CFO and chief marketing officer at Emspire.
Lendl said he expects to have more than 50 employees in the next few years, with most being located in Charlotte. They will mainly be recruited to Emspire's marketing, information technology and sales departments.
