Olathe, Kansas biotech startup Ronawk is bringing on a marketing expert and launching a new logo – both part of an effort to convey an expanding scope of what their technology can do. Trice Alford joins as Chief Marketing Officer, and the startups 7th full time employee.
“The technology that we’ve created goes well beyond what we’re doing with cell culture and healthcare,” CEO A.J. Mellott told the 4thEst8. In an emailed statement he later added “I cannot wait to see what Trice builds on the marketing side over the next year.”
Ronawk New Logo
The initial logo was one that Mellott created himself when he and partner Heather Decker launched the company in 2019.
“We found it was a little confusing,” he told the 4thEst8. “And that’s when we realized, okay, we need to do something that will allow us to re-brand… update our mission statement and align our messaging so that everything makes sense to customers, people that are just looking at our website, collaborators and investors.”
They hired a consultant to help the whole leadership team through the process. Building on a broader mission statement, Mellott says the new logo “essentially says that anything is possible when we work together” – a core value of the company. The imagery also builds on that of an atom, representing science, as well as interconnecting hearts and a diversity of colors for teamwork.
The startup reports doubling revenues in 2021 to more than $700,000 from $347,000 in 2020.
Spun out of the University of Kansas Medical Center and founded in 2019 by Mellott and CTO Heather Decker, Ronawk is developing technology that can mass produce a patients own stem cells in the lab. Those cells, called ‘biologics’, can be used in the treatment of many diseases, cancer, organ injuries, and burns. The Olathe, KS startup sells its products to scientists developing vaccines, therapeutics, treatments, and diagnostics.
Mellott says the company is mostly bootstrapped with “a little bit of funding… by a family office” (something CrunchBase calls ‘ Venture – Series Unknown’ from June, 2020) for an undisclosed amount. 4thEst8 readers first heard of Ronawk when they were featured at the 2021 InvestMidwest Forum.
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