Leadership: Co-founders Robert Thelen (CEO), Matthew Hamann (CTO) and Rachel Orrino (head of design)
Location: Milwaukee and Durham, North Carolina
Website:
rownd.io
What it does: Provides user authentication and onboarding software-as-a-service to developers and businesses
Founded: 2021
Employees: 7
Next goals: Complete a Series A funding round
Funding: $2.9 million in VC funding
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One software-as-a service startup founded in North Carolina is targeting Milwaukee for its next phase of growth thanks to its CEO’s recent return home to Wisconsin.
Rownd was co-founded by Oconomowoc native Robert Thelen, a military veteran and former IBM employee.
Thelen began his professional career serving in the U.S. Air Force from 2007 to 2014, including a year-long stint as a combat advisor in Afghanistan. He took his military experience to Dartmouth, earning his MBA in 2016. Soon after, he and his wife moved to North Carolina so she could attend Duke University, and Thelen took a job as senior product manager at IBM.
As Thelen and his IBM development team – which included his now co-founders, Rachel Orrino and Matthew Hamman – worked their way up the ranks, they found themselves disillusioned.
“The more you get promoted, the less stuff you actually do and it’s more politics,” he said. “It just didn’t seem like fun anymore.”
Then, as the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Thelen and his team began working on some side projects. One of those projects was Rownd. The startup began as a data privacy company. After completing the California accelerator program Y Combinator, Rownd’s business proposition shifted.
“Although companies say they care about data privacy, they don’t,” said Thelen. “They’re using really bad products that don’t cost anything so they can have a lawyer say they meet a minimum requirement.”
Rownd is now focused on the onboarding and authentication space, with cybersecurity woven into every aspect of the company’s software. Rownd allows a business to change where a sign-in button is located on their mobile app or website, without needing to install additional code.
“The best apps in the world allow you to actually explore them,” said Thelen. “If you download Airbnb, you can look around and find the perfect house. They don’t make you sign up until you click ‘reserve.’”
Allowing preliminary access to an app leads to more users signing up, Thelen said. An average Rownd client sees a 52% increase in the number of people using their app or website within three months.
App users are not given a password that can be easily hacked. Instead, for each session on an app, Rownd’s software uses pass keys. Each user is also given a credential, called a JSON Web Token, that lasts one hour. After that time is up, the credential needs to be refreshed.
Rownd recorded more than $1 million in annual revenue after completing the Y Combinator program in 2022.
Thelen relocated to Colgate last year to be closer to family. Rownd is now dual headquartered in Milwaukee and Durham, North Carolina, although the company has employees across the country.
Rownd doesn’t have a physical office location in Milwaukee yet, but Thelen plans to look for a space after the company completes its next funding round and hires additional staff.
“Our next big growth stage is going to be raising a Series A, which will be between $7 million and $15 million,” he said. “After that, we would hire 15 to 20 more people.”
He hopes to ultimately have a third of his team stationed in the Milwaukee area.
