ControlBright

Traction Capital has invested $500,000 in a Duluth, MN company that is innovating within the industrial lighting and controls industry. The Minneapolis venture capital firm is excited to take the lead on ControlBright‘s first round of funding.

 

ControlBright is a hardware/software solution that enables remote access to a building’s lighting, HVAC, alarm, and automation systems. The company utilizes a Football (4G LTE device) that exists onsite and connects back through the cloud via ControlBright’s proprietary platform. This allows technicians to perform many of their service and maintenance duties from their home or office.

 

“Our main customers are large OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) because our remote access solution saves them significant amounts of time and money,” says Chad Behling, founder of ControlBright. “But the real beneficiary is the technician who no longer has to travel long distances – sometimes across multiple states – for on-site service or maintenance checks that are often on minor or routine issues.”

 

The OEMs ControlBright sells to supply lighting and other industrial controls solutions to many of the largest retail stores, hospitals, office buildings, warehouses, factories, and multi-residential buildings around the world. The OEMs provide the technical support to most of the systems they sell, so remote access solutions like ControlBright deliver significant value to their service departments.

 

Many other remote access solutions do exist in the market. However, ControlBright offers one additional feature that sets it above the rest. ControlBright’s key differentiator is their ability to connect to multiple remote systems without configuring unique IP addresses for each system.  This is a powerful feature that makes deployment and management of systems in the field a breeze.  Large deployments no longer need extensive ongoing planning and IP address management.

 

Over the next year and beyond, Chad and ControlBright will work to build out their team in order to scale up production and sales. Traction Capital will support ControlBright through this process and believes the key to the business’s success will be to bring in the right people for the right positions and get Chad spending more of his time on the vision and areas of the business he is best at.

 

“What Chad and ControlBright have accomplished already with a small team is certainly impressive,” says Peyton Green, Sr. Associate at Traction Capital. “We are excited to see how much faster they can go with this investment and a couple of key hires.”

About ControlBright

ControlBright is a Duluth, MN based company selling hardware and software that creates remote access solutions for industrial lighting, HVAC, alarm, and automation suppliers. ControlBright’s solution allows for these suppliers to reduce costs and increase efficiency by enabling their technicians to manage, diagnose, and solve more issues remotely.

For more information, please visit: https://controlbright.com/

 

About Traction Capital

Traction Capital is a Minneapolis venture capital and private equity hybrid fund on a mission to help entrepreneurs get what they want for the greater good. The principals at Traction Capital achieve this goal by making investments in and acquisitions of companies in the “capital gap” – a place where funding is often vital, but less available. Traction Capital uses its entrepreneurial approach and investor base to better connect with its portfolio founders as they work together towards a common goal.

 

GoRout

Traction Capital has invested $500,000 in a Rochester, MN company that is revolutionizing the way football coaches around the country – from youth to professional – are running practices. The Minneapolis venture capital firm is excited to take the lead on GoRout’s seed round of funding geared towards growing the company.

GoRout is a high-tech startup that uses its unique devices and self-designed software to deliver football practices that are 3 times more efficient than traditional practices. Using GoRout’s technology, coaches can design practice plans ahead of time and send plays to the players in real-time – eliminating the need to huddle in-between plays and maximizing the volume of reps teams can run in a standard practice time.

“Our biggest competition is the status quo,” says Mike Rolih, founder of GoRout. “Nobody is doing what we are doing yet, and the results speak for themselves. Across our customer base – including many Power 5 Division-I Football programs – we have a winning percentage over .700. We guarantee that we will make your team’s practices more efficient using our technology.”

The GoRout devices are primarily used by scout teams during a practice. Scout teams serve the purpose of emulating the upcoming opponent of the team, giving the first-team players reps against offensive and defensive looks they can expect to face during that week’s game. This type of preparation is vital to a team’s success.

Teams that do not use the GoRout system are usually requiring scout teams to study and use hand-written play cards that need to be created each week ahead of the upcoming game. This method requires many stoppages in the flow of practice as each play requires a new huddle and break to run, resulting in ample wasted time and interruptions.

The focus over the next year and beyond will be to get the product in the hands of more coaches and expand into new sports. Mike’s vision for GoRout includes revolutionizing how all sports teams practice.

Key features of GoRout’s platform include:

  • Ability to upload play cards into the software ahead of each week’s practice and design the practice plan.
  • Devices the players wear on their waste that allows them to view the plays without having to huddle or break.
  • Coach’s ability to send plays throughout practice to the players’ devices using the GoRout app.

Traction Capital and GoRout are excited by the opportunity to focus on the company’s growth with the investment. The principals at Traction Capital will help the GoRout team implement business and growth processes, add to their team, and ramp up sales to get the product in more programs across the country. “We are excited by Mike’s progress to-date in building this company, and even more excited to help them reach another level. The team at GoRout is A+ and we believe they are ready to grow and grow fast,” says Shane Erickson, founder and Managing Partner of Traction Capital.

 

About GoRout

GoRout is a Rochester, MN company that strives to revolutionize the way sports teams practice. Founder Mike Rolih has combined experience as a player and coach with the technical know-how to execute on a vision of more efficient practices. GoRout’s software and devices make practices 3 times more efficient, helping teams around the country improve their performances on game day.

For more information, please visit: https://www.gorout.com/

 

About Traction Capital

Traction Capital is a Minneapolis venture capital and private equity hybrid fund on a mission to help entrepreneurs get what they want for the greater good. The principles at Traction Capital achieve this goal by making investments in and acquisitions of companies in the “capital gap” – a place where funding is often vital, but less available. Traction Capital uses its entrepreneurial approach and investor base to better connect with its portfolio founders as they work together towards a common goal.

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