A hospitality staffing startup in Birmingham, Alabama, is expanding to Green Bay.
The startup, Croux Inc., has chosen Green Bay as its first out-of-state market because it parallels the Alabama markets it already operates in, according to reporting by Alabama Inno, Wisconsin Inno's sister publication.
Croux was founded in early 2022 by a team of restaurant-industry veterans. It's seeing rapid growth after winning back-to-back local pitch competitions in Alabama. The Alabama Restaurant and Hospitality Association also recently designated the startup supplier of the year.
Earlier this year, Green Bay venture capital firm TitletownTech led Croux’s $1 million pre-seed funding round.
In addition to expanding to Green Bay, Croux is forging partnerships and gearing up to raise funding next year.
Croux's platform connects vetted talent with flexible work opportunities in the hospitality space. Businesses pay a monthly subscription fee to post shifts on the app along with required skills and qualifications.
“The future of our local economies depends on getting the future of work right,” Croux CEO and co-founder Jennifer Ryan said. She added that part of her mission is creating equal and easy access to work opportunities.
The idea behind Croux is to provide a service to the humans behind hospitality, which Ryan calls the heartbeat of the industry, providing them access to greater earning power, as well as serving small local businesses that are holding up local economies. The businesses Croux is partnering with are posting roles that average more than two and a half times the federal minimum wage per hour, Ryan said. Another goal is to remove barriers to entry by providing work opportunities that require no experience.
Croux has a strong presence across Alabama. Since launching in Birmingham it has expanded into Tuscaloosa, Auburn, Huntsville, the Gulf Coast and Montgomery. The founders project that Croux will have fulfilled 10,000 shifts by the end of the year in Alabama; it's already at more than 9,000.
Croux's model is similar to that of WorkShift, a Milwaukee startup co-founded in late 2019 by Bekki Yang and Manny Lara. Earlier this year, WorkShift won the 2023 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest in the business services category.
