Sure, the latest initiatives from the Teslas, Apples and Googles of the industry tend to dominate the tech news space — and with good reason. Still, the tech titans aren’t the only ones bringing innovation to the sector.
In an effort to highlight up-and-coming startups, Built In has launched The Future 5 across 11 major U.S. tech hubs. Each quarter, we will feature five tech startups, nonprofits or entrepreneurs in each of these hubs who just might be working on the next big thing. Read our round-up of Atlanta’s rising startups from last quarter here.
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From logistics and fintech to e-commerce and beyond, the Atlanta tech scene is sure to deliver. While the big corporations tend to take the stage, the city is home to a range of young innovators looking to share the limelight.
Built In spoke with five pre-Series A startups who are putting their all into developing solutions to improve the daily lives of people everywhere. These Atlanta-based creators are leveraging tech in unique ways, from using blockchain to streamline employment to applying AI to assist product development.
Read on to find out what these companies are building and how their solutions could shape the future of tech.
Built In’s Future 5 up-and-Coming Atlanta Startups, Q3 2022
- Carpool Logistics (Logistics/Supply Chain)
- ImIn (HR Tech)
- Pruuvn (Blockchain)
- Simporter (Artificial Intelligence)
- Zinnia (Travel)
Technology has streamlined logistics processes across the freight industry. Think of how quickly your Amazon package, for example, arrives at your doorstep after you’ve tracked its delivery status for two days. Carpool Logistics wants to bring that same logistics visibility into automotive shipping.
“One of the challenges in this space is it’s very unreliable — we never know when a vehicle’s going to be picked up or when it’s going to be delivered,” Michael Malakhov, Carpool’s co-founder and CEO, told Built In. “We’re trying to really bring a lot of transparency into this space.”
Serving dealerships, auto auctions, fleet companies and individuals, Carpool’s internal transportation management system allows multiple clients to share space on one truck. By bundling the shipping of these vehicles, Carpool helps businesses save money by making fewer shipments. It also lessens carbon emissions by ensuring fewer half-full trucks are on the road.
Having grown substantially since its inception, the company currently transports more than 1,800 transports each month. Its goal is to be one of the top players in the automotive logistics space.
Lauren Wilson, an entrepreneur with a background in the call center industry, founded ImIn to help hourly employees strike an optimal work-life balance. The platform also benefits employers by helping them maximize their revenue.
ImIn’s platform allows hourly employees to view available hours and apply for the specific times they’d like to work. As they build their own schedules, the solution has gamified features that can help them earn rewards. For instance, employers can offer rewards to employees that sign up for lower-demand hours, like nights and weekends. Employees can also build their status the more hours they work and earn rewards once they achieve a certain level.
“We’re trying to change the workplace. Now we’re in a ‘life revolves around work’ [mentality] and we’re trying to shift that to work revolving around life,” Wilson told Built In.
Though the company currently focuses on modernizing the call center space, Wilson hopes to expand ImIn down the line to other hourly employees such as those in the retail and fast food industries.
Having witnessed how taxing it can be to repeatedly verify one’s work history, Bryan Hobbs developed Pruuvn to save time and effort for job seekers and their new employers.
Pruuvn uses blockchain tech to credential workers and safely manage their data. Its solution verifies a person’s work history and credentials once and then stores that information securely on the blockchain. Afterward, users can share that information with employers, banks, financial services and others as needed.
“If you think about what’s going on with the future of work right now, everybody wants to be independent,” Hobbs told Built In. “In order to be an independent worker or someone who works for themselves, you’re going to need ways to quickly prove who you are and quickly prove the information about you. … So that’s what we’re doing [is] giving people control back of that data.”
Since its launch in 2019, Pruuvn has come to serve five enterprise clients. Going forward, Pruuvn is working to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning uses into its platform as it works toward becoming the largest data trust in the world.
Although consumers see thousands of product advertisements a day, brands invested thorough and time-consuming research into each one of those goods. Even still, consumers change what they want on a dime. Simporter wants to help brands figure out what customers will want before it’s in demand.
“Consumer demand is so fragmented today … that traditional market research approaches no longer work,” Dillon Hall, Simporter’s co-founder and CEO, told Built In via email. “If you invest in consumer opinions of today, by the time your product launches, their demands have already changed. By providing a quicker, more predictive tool to identify unmet white space opportunities, Simporter lets our users be first to market and increase data-driven actions.”
At its core, Simporter is an AI-powered software tool that automates new product research for consumer goods companies. The platform uses machine learning to recognize trends and uses AI to generate new product concepts. Based on data from search queries, social media posts and similar sources, Simporter predicts consumer demand around certain product attributes.
Currently helping about 20 Fortune 500 brands come up with their next product ideas, Simporter is focusing on organic growth and plans to launch new features over the next few months.
Several factors can make or break a strong team, so Zinnia wants to ensure companies send their employees on successful teambuilding trips. The startup offers a solution that helps companies plan offsites tailored to their specific budget, goals and needs.
“After spending seven years in corporate tech at Microsoft and Salesforce, I have experienced firsthand the complicated and time-consuming nature of planning offsites, and knew there had to be a better way to efficiently plan a memorable offsite with a tangible ROI,” Lauren Marturano, Zinnia’s founder and CEO, told Built In via email.
Zinnia works to help companies avoid common friction points that typically accompany planning offsites. For instance, when it comes to choosing a destination, Zinnia analyzes travel data to connect companies to the most convenient and cost-effective locales. The platform also partners with businesses to help them find unique options for lodging and dining in locations across the globe.
Companies everywhere are searching for new ways to foster their company culture after adopting hybrid or remote work models following the pandemic, and Zinnia’s goal is to help them do so. The company is gearing up to launch its platform in Q1 of next year.
