2021 brought an onslaught of new and seemingly insurmountable challenges to the table for many organizations.
At Kranz Consulting, we used the past year as an opportunity to learn, grow and absorb as much as we could from the ever-changing world around us. As the CEO of Kranz, I want to provide an overview of key areas of success we achieved as an organization, as well as our predictions for what 2022 has in store.
First, I’m incredibly proud of the leadership team, consultants and support staff we have at Kranz (veterans and new employees who joined in 2021), and the significant accomplishments we’ve made in growing and scaling the business. We continue to invest time and energy in our quality of service and other strategic initiatives and will expand the focus on employee retention and development, marketing and partnership initiatives, etc. as we Power Up in 2022!
Notable Trends in 2021
Several financial, economic, and Pandemic related issues frequented news headlines over the course of 2021, many of which touched our organization. For one, the nationwide talent shortage impacted dozens of industries and companies of all sizes – from small, emerging growth businesses to large corporations and organizations within Kranz’s core business areas.
The national talent shortage resulted in a marked increase in demand for Kranz consultants. I’m happy to report that Kranz grew our headcount substantially and attracted experienced and talented accounting and finance consultants across the country, who joined the firm throughout the year. In addition, we have signed contracts and added 100+ new client logos year-to-date.
Our services were in higher demand in part due to the record-breaking number of venture capital-backed startup deals that were funded in 2021. In Q3 of 2021, more dollars were spent on venture capital than ever before – 207 venture capital deals closed in Q3 alone. In addition, SPAC transactions were up almost double this year from 2020.
SPACs in the U.S. have raised $87.9 billion YTD through Q3 in 2021, already exceeding the total issuance in all of last year, according to data from SPAC Research. Across our business practice areas, we’re equipped to handle this trend in 2022 with our expertise in financial strategy and transactions.
Key Points of Progress for Kranz
The nationwide complications that resulted from the Pandemic caused major issues within many organizations, but for Kranz, we were able to turn those issues into growth opportunities.
Due to the talent shortage, we’re seeing more companies turn to consulting firms because they are having difficulty filling internal roles needed to complete key projects. Kranz has been able to successfully help those companies by offering support for operational accounting as well as specialized and advanced services to meet specific needs and improve efficiency of our clients. As a consulting firm, our organization was uniquely positioned to meet the needs of organizations in a variety of industries. This year, the significant increase in demand for consulting as a field led to record metrics for Kranz, including overall revenue, EBITDA, new clients, hiring, etc.
Before the pandemic, most of our consultants were located in or around Silicon Valley California. But now, the out-of-state total workforce has grown 10x, a major leap from what our business used to look like. We believe remote work leads to greater flexibility and reach outside of our core SV market. It allows us to provide the best quality consultants for our clients, wherever they are located in the US and globally.
“Our flexible business model has proven successful in adapting to the on-going challenges of the Pandemic and shifts in the workplace models of our clients.”
– Daryl Dobrenz, Kranz Consulting CEO
I’m grateful to each of our employees for rising to the occasion with every challenge that was thrown their way this year. 2021 was also a year of recovery from the major upheaval in 2020, but our team didn’t let that prevent them from doing their best for our clients and business.
Looking Ahead to 2022
The best thing we can do with what happened in 2021 is learn from it and apply it to our business practices for 2022 – and we plan to do exactly that.
One of the most prominent trends that we see carrying over to 2022 is the increased integration of technology and artificial intelligence to streamline businesses. We’ll be leaning on our prior experience working with dozens of organizations to help each of them address complex business processes, speed time to market, reduce costs, and deliver a competitive edge, to serve those clients who come our way next year.
The social, environmental and ethical impact – ESG framework – of an organization is becoming increasingly more important to potential investors, so we will likely see the prioritization of improving ESG standards within companies.
Though we anticipate these trends will only grow to be more apparent across industries in the next year, we also know that their impact can be alleviated with the help of Kranz’s consulting services. In 2022, we have our sights set on continuing what we do best: support entrepreneurs, leaders, and founders through the complexities of building high-growth businesses. If you’re a business leader and looking for seasoned insight and guidance to make your organization the best it can be, we’d love to work with you in 2022.