By: Holly Riddle
Photo: KCF LinkedIn
We talk a lot about Ben Franklin Technology Partners. We frequently highlight how the organization invests in up-and-coming regional startups, like its annual BIG IDEA contest, which has propelled numerous startups to success (like Innovation Park-based Phospholutions, a Happy Valley entrepreneurial success story).
While Ben Franklin may receive a lot of attention for all its work helping inventive companies get off the ground, you might not realize how much the organization continues to invest in, and support, companies that have grown far beyond the startup phase, and that are now making a national or even international impact. Such is the case with KCF Technologies.
Transforming American manufacturing
Founded in 2000 by Jeremy Frank and Gary Koopmann, with strong Penn State roots, KCF Technologies has grown from a simple sensor company focused on military applications to an industrial maintenance platform that serves over 600 manufacturing locations worldwide, monitoring 135,000 assets and preventing an astounding 75,000 hours of industrial downtime.
Over the company’s lifetime, it’s received funding from Ben Franklin multiple times.
Frank said, “KCF Technologies is an excellent example of Ben Franklin Technology Partners’ impact on the greater community. With a focus on high-growth technology companies, Ben Franklin provided funding to KCF for our first commercial product in 2008 and once again in 2014 when we began scaling up our SMARTdiagnostics product. This product is now widely adopted by industry leaders today. Their funding and support were vital to getting our product off the ground and have significantly contributed to our success.”
“This underscores the key point that Ben Franklin can successfully point to time after time: People come for the funding but they stay and are most appreciative of the knowledge and networking.”
In 2019, KCF repaid the balance on its Ben Franklin investment early, but that’s hardly where the relationship ended.
According to Todd Erdley, Central Region director and portfolio manager at Ben Franklin, KCF and its leadership demonstrate a few key elements that have made it a company Ben Franklin wants to continue to work with and support — namely, “a high degree of desire by the CEO to learn, a focus on gaining customer sales as a result of SBIR funding and a core technology combined with a strong founder vision that had the opportunity to significantly penetrate a market.”
So what has that support looked like, past funding?
Erdley explained, “KCF did not start where it currently is. KCF has evolved their go-to-market strategy and customer focus. Along the way, KCF worked with Ben Franklin to consider and pursue a different way of presenting their technology to a new market that had not been fully considered previously. This underscores the key point that Ben Franklin can successfully point to time after time: People come for the funding but they stay and are most appreciative of the knowledge and networking.”
Of course, it’s not just Ben Franklin’s support that’s made KCF the international solution for preventing unplanned industry downtime (to the tune of $4 billion saved for clients since 2018). As Erdley noted, there are myriad factors that have made KCF successful, that other startups could learn from.
He told us, “The core to KCF’s success has been a thirst to humbly learn in pursuit of a passion for impact. KCF understood its ‘why’ of transforming American manufacturing. KCF approached this ‘why’ thirsty for knowledge and willingness to purposefully integrate that knowledge into their strategy. And when things were not going well, KCF built on their vision and knowledge to have highly effective pivots that took leadership courage and operational belief in a strong outcome.”
Learn more about Ben Franklin Technology Partners at cnp.benfranklin.org
