Birmingham-based startup chosen for prestigious national accelerator program

Lighthouse Labs, a nationally acclaimed startup accelerator based in Virginia, on Monday announced the 10 teams joining its milestone 10th cohort.

This latest cohort will run from March 15 until June 4 and is Lighthouse’s largest and most diverse to date. Among the group is Birmingham-based Frameworq.

Created initially for internal usage by KMS, formerly Kemp Management Solutions, Frameworq is an easy-to-use, proprietary software platform that transforms full-scale project management for high volumes of small projects.

According to a release, Lighthouse Labs received record-breaking applications for its spring 2021 cohort; over 200 companies applied, a 50% increase from the next highest cycle. Beyond an increase in application quantity, the accelerator also saw an increase in application quality — with an 11% increase in average finalist scores over fall 2020.

All ten teams — located across America — will receive $20,000 in equity-free grant funding, as well as access to three months of tailored support from Lighthouse Labs, mentorship from a network of over 100 subject-matter experts, weekly programming on startup foundations and services from partners including financial modeling from Sandbox, legal support from Kaleo Legal and accounting support from Ballast Consulting Group. Lighthouse will also debut a partnership with Pip Collective to provide diversity, equity and inclusion training and consulting services to the teams. The program will run entirely virtually this spring and will culminate with a public demo day event the week of May 31.

“The ten teams and sixteen founders that will join Lighthouse Labs this Spring represent the true potential of a more diverse innovation economy in Richmond and beyond,” stated Erin Powell, executive director at Lighthouse Labs. “Access to early capital is extremely limited for underrepresented startup founders, and we are thrilled to do our part to help close that funding gap and support founders as they grow, especially for such a diverse group of entrepreneurs.”

Frameworq is led by cofounders James Kemp (CEO) and Jay Kemp (CMO).

Asked why they decided to launch a startup when already running a successful business, Jay Kemp stated, “Innovation is one of the pillars of our business with KMS. Our drive to find the best way to manage projects and the best software to manage projects was what led to Frameworq.”

“We are excited about being a part of the Lighthouse community and meeting more like-minders founders. We anticipate the program will really help us dial in on our target market and scale our customer pipeline,” he added.

The software is already in use by clients such as Regions Bank, Alabama Power Company’s energy services group and Truist Bank.

Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn