Published in the Spring 2014 issue of Kettering Magazine

Since graduating from Kettering University in 2005, Andy Cronk has already founded three companies. Cronk recently secured $3.2 million in Series A funding from Hyde Park Venture Partners, Chicago Ventures, Divergent Ventures and angel investors for his current company, TempoDB.

The company, founded in 2011 by Cronk and partners Justin DeLay and Mike Yagley, is a time series database service for sensors and measurement data. Their mission is to, “make sense of the measured world.” The database stores billions of data points from internet-connected sensors to serve clients in industries such as energy, manufacturing, healthcare and more. The database is intended to make time series data storage simple and powerful. TempoDB was named a 2013 Smart Grid News Company to Watch and earned Techie.com's Editor's Choice award for emerging technology.

“It is a high-level database that helps make sense of the measured world,” Cronk said. “So far, we’ve learned that the demand is huge as we’ve found many companies looking to transform their business with sensor data. We’ve also discovered the technical challenges we’re tackling are pushing the boundaries of streaming analytics and distributed computing. It’s a great time to be building our business in this market.”

Cronk, a Computer Engineering graduate from Flushing, Mich., who co-oped with UPS, credits Kettering’s co-op model for helping him get started on a fast track to business success.

“Co-op was amazing,” Cronk said. “When I graduated and started working full-time, I was able to start above an entry level position because of my co-op experience. It definitely set me on the path to entrepreneurship.”

Cronk plans to use the funding he’s received to expand his team with more software engineers and a technical sales team to reach customers on a global scale. He also noted that he’d like to potentially add co-op students from Kettering in the future.

Cronk also noted that he hopes his success with startups helps show that successful business ideas can come to life anywhere.

“We did it right here in Chicago, here in the Midwest,” Cronk said. “You don’t need to go to Silicon Valley to launch a successful startup. If you can provide something that people need, there are resources to make it happen anywhere.”