New bizperc Tenant LightEdge Solutions Raises $16M for Des Moines and KC Expansion

LightEdge Solutions, a hosted service provider focused on the needs of small and medium-sized businesses, may have moved into the bizperc coworking space a few short weeks ago, but it seems as if the company was always meant to call Kansas City its second home. 

"We are an entrepreneurial company," said TJ Bangs, Regional Vice President of LightEdge.  "We are growing and cutting-edge.  That is the same feeling that we got when we toured bizperc."

I met with TJ and one of his LightEdge colleagues for coffee one summer morning.  The meeting was based around LightEdge's agenda to expand to Kansas City (in addition to its current Des Moines location) and find the right connections in the KC area in order to make an impact in the industry.  The short 30-minute coffee meeting quickly turned into a tour of bizperc, a collaborative discussion with Think Big Partners' co-founder Herb Sih, and the signing of some tenant papers: LightEdge Solutions was joining bizperc.

And in perfect timing.  Just a few months before LightEdge opened its Kansas City office within the walls of bizperc, the company announced that it had secured $16M of private equity from The Anshutz Investment Company and debt financing from US Bank to double the capacity of its data center operations and launch in Kansas City.  Read more from the LightEdge press release. 

"LightEdge's ability to provide best in class collocation and cage space in addition to our fullly managed cloud services business makes us unique in Iowa and the Midwest," said Jeff Springborn, president and COO of LightEdge in the July 27th release.  "This expansion will enable the businesses of Iowa and other Midwestern states to continue to transform their daily IT delivery models to reduce costs and ensure high-availability IT operations."

bizperc and the Kansas City IT industries in general are growing exponentially.  LightEdge's $16M capital raise is just one testament to that. 

"When you look at what we do, we are 1 of 10 in the nation that provides cloud service.  Kansas City is underserved in that area.  This is a technology need in Kansas City." 

Thanks for joining the bizperc (and Kansas City) community, LightEdge!  Happy to have you on board for further coworking, networking and collaborating. 

Written by Allison Way
@AllisonThinkBig