Mira-Mini | Wunderkind: Scale-up of the Year (Headquartered Out-of-State)

Gerry Dick: Well, the scale up of the year for a company not headquartered in Indiana is Wunderkind, the New York based company that acquired SmarterHQ in 2020 and is grown exponentially since then. Pleased to be joined backstage here at the Mira Awards by Kara Holthaus, who's the Vice President of Client Services at Wunderkind, and Kara, congratulations.

Kara Holthaus: Thank you so much.

Gerry Dick: Growth is a big part of your story, and I mentioned how Wunderkind, again, a New York based marketing company, how it got here. So, it was the acquisition of SmarterHQ.

Kara Holthaus: Right. Yes, in 2020 and that really started our growth in Indianapolis and really expansion out of New York. We're a global organization and this is the primary focus for our growth going forward.

Gerry Dick: Give us kind of a thumbnail description of Wunderkind, the services you provide.

Kara Holthaus: Wunderkind's, a performance marketing platform. We serve primarily e- commerce retail organizations and publishers, and we're here to personalize the experience for every consumer throughout all of the websites you interact with.

Gerry Dick: In your view, what is key to the growth? What's really driving it in terms of what your customers like about Wunderkind?

Kara Holthaus: Yeah, so we're driving a lot of additional revenue for the customers that we support, but that's all through creating the best experience for you as the end consumer. So, we can help those brands separate their experience against our competition. But the growth is really coming from the performance that our platform drives. It is above and beyond all of the competition out there, and we see that as a former competitor when we were a standalone SmarterHQ, and the combined solution really sets us apart from any of the other options out there.

Gerry Dick: You mentioned you're a New York base company that really likes Indianapolis. So, a lot of the growth and as you look at investment types of things going forward is going to be here in Indiana.

Kara Holthaus: Yeah, it's been interesting really at the time of acquisition, we were a little nervous about what an East Coast company might think of a Midwest based company here, and we found out actually a lot of our core values were exactly the same. We might've said them in different ways, but they're the same and that's played through in our commitment to growing our presence here in Indianapolis. And we were around 35 to 40 employees at the time of acquisition and we've 6x'd that over the last year and a half, which has been incredible to see.

Gerry Dick: Yeah, and as before we started taping, you mentioned the fact that your folks from New York coming out to the Midwest, coming out to Indiana, maybe being surprised at what they see from a technology standpoint, and this really is a tech hub.

Kara Holthaus: Yeah, from the tech standpoint and from the talent standpoint. And being someone who's been here in Indianapolis for the last 13 years or so, it's been so great to see the talent pool expand in how we've been able to grow that here, and that's really set us up for the success that we've had through this acquisition.

Gerry Dick: As you look going forward, opportunities for growth.

Kara Holthaus: Oh, I think here in Indianapolis is really where we're seeing a lot of the growth from a people standpoint, which is I think my most exciting piece. Maybe that's because the majority of the team here is commercially focused, high paying roles, and then we can really continue to help the community grow that talent as we grow our company globally.

Gerry Dick: Growth success story, certainly taking place, unfolding in central Indiana, the scale up of the year for a non- Indian company, Wunderkind. Kara Holthaus, VP of Client Services. And Kara, congratulations on the award. Good luck going forward.

Kara Holthaus: Thanks so much.

Gerry Dick: All right.