Ypsi’s Got It All: Three Unique Startups, Three Different Industries, One Influential Town

By Erin Gregory, Purpose Jobs

On paper, three of the companies working out of Ann Arbor SPARK's Ypsilanti incubator have almost nothing in common. Mbility uses NASA-licensed sensors to track freight shipments and the health of the workers who move them. FlmLnk uses audience data and machine learning to help film distributors figure out which titles in their catalogs deserve promotion, and KISS is an app that anonymously warns people when a sexual partner tests positive for a sexually transmitted infection. But they all chose to build in the same place.

Each founding team came to SPARK East needing something different, whether grant funding, legal help, or a professional place to meet clients. Kristine Nash-Wong, director of entrepreneurial services at SPARK East, works with all three, and SPARK's role in each case was to connect the company to the right resource at the right point in its growth. Together, the three companies show the range this humble Michigan town has and the different kinds of founders finding success here.

Mbility: NASA technology from two Ypsi locals

Mbility co-founders Sheri Washington, the company's CEO, and Dorian Bow, its COO, started the company to solve a problem the pandemic made impossible to ignore. In 2021, supply chains stalled across the country, and businesses struggled to see where their freight was or when it would arrive. Washington says Bow knew exactly what to do, and in 2022 the two set out to build a logistics platform that would give shippers and carriers that missing visibility.

Both founders grew up in Ypsilanti, and Washington says the family values they were raised on taught them to invest in the community that shaped them. "We have automotive blood in our veins," she says. They tested the platform with local businesses including Restaurant Depot and Value City Furniture, and by 2023, Mbility was supporting logistics professionals in 30 cities across 20 states.

The platform brings a freight load board, transportation management, fleet and driver visibility, and safety and compliance tools into one system, along with on-demand delivery for items too big for a back seat. Washington says the moment it felt like a real business came when Mbility was invited to demo the platform for Walmart, which pushed the team to look for NASA technology that could make it stronger. That search led the team to a startup cohort and then to VentureWell's FLIPspace, a program that introduces startups to patents from federal labs, and Mbility partnered with NASA in 2025.

Mbility's sensors use radio frequency identification, or RFID, which sends data over radio waves. Attached to freight, they report where a shipment is as it moves by truck, plane, or ship. The NASA-licensed version works without GPS or an internet connection, so it keeps reporting when those signals drop.

The same sensors can also look out for the people who move that freight. NASA uses the technology on the International Space Station to keep watch on astronaut health, and Mbility saw a way to do the same for workers on the ground. The company built the sensors into a patent-pending line of clothing called Tactical Undergarments, designed for demanding jobs in fields like caregiving and public safety. "The people powering supply chains need to be well to keep our country going," Washington says.

Washington found SPARK while researching startup resources and moved Mbility into its Ypsilanti incubator at 215 W. Michigan Ave. SPARK connected the team to mentors and grant funding, along with legal and technical service providers, and worked with them through the customer discovery that shaped their current products. "Without SPARK, we may have abandoned the start-up journey," Washington says.

In two years, Washington wants Mbility recognized as a leading authority on commercializing NASA technology through startups, with relationships across Michigan government, military, health care and manufacturing organizations. Getting there means hiring a growth officer, a sales and marketing team, and an engineering team for product development, and possibly moving into a larger office. SPARK supports companies at that stage too, with hiring help through its job portal and site selection for growing businesses ready for more space.

FlmLnk: Making sure independent films find their audience

FlmLnk's three founders came to the film industry through a shared love of marketing and family passion. Co-founder and CEO Jordan Johnson, co-founder DeVante Watkins, and Chief Technology Officer Ramon Williams all have relatives who make films. They watched those filmmakers pour everything into production and realize too late that marketing mattered just as much as the art. FlmLnk started by using its marketing expertise to promote these family films. Word spread from set to set, and after five successful clients, the founders incorporated the business.

The name reflects the founders' marketing roots. FLM stands for "fundamental leverage marketing," and Johnson says most filmmakers would see better results if they simply showed up in the marketplace and talked about their projects more often. He spent 20 years running multimillion-dollar departments inside billion-dollar corporations, managing teams of more than 100 people, before turning that experience toward film.

FlmLnk solves the problem that starts after a film lands on a streaming platform. Getting a title onto Tubi or Amazon Prime Video doesn't mean anyone will watch it, and the founders say many filmmakers earn less than $20 a quarter from work that took years to make. "Distribution doesn't mean discovery," Watkins says. By the time a film reaches a platform, the filmmaker has usually moved on to the next project, and the distributor has little reason to market a title that hasn't shown it will pay off.

FlmLnk has shifted from one-off projects to working with catalog owners, meaning distributors, streaming platforms, and filmmakers with large libraries of titles. Its proprietary software lets FlmLnk market dozens or even hundreds of titles with the effort it once took to market one. The process combines audience polling, web scrapers that capture what strangers are saying about a project, free analytics from Google and Meta, and a machine learning model that identifies what resonates with a particular audience. FlmLnk is also building a tool that scores each title and explains which ones are worth promoting first, so a client gets a promotional plan grounded in data.

Johnson says the business proved itself shortly after inception, when a $5,000 project returned $15,000 for the client and continued earning afterward. He says every client since has seen a positive return on investment, with thriller and faith-based titles performing especially well.

A few months after incorporating, the team needed somewhere to meet clients that wasn't a coffee shop. SPARK East gave them conference rooms, computers and Wi-Fi, and connected them to mentors, workshops and grant funding. SPARK also connected FlmLnk to its intern program to support the company's rapid expansion. "This is what an incubator should be," Watkins says. "It's very warm and inviting, and it gives you the comfortability to grow." Some of FlmLnk's advisers came out of the same building, and the team credits that network with real momentum.

FlmLnk is fundraising now, and it aims to become the largest holder of data on how audiences consume urban film and TV before expanding into other genres. Johnson doesn't hedge on where the company is headed. "We're going to be a multibillion-dollar company," he says. "It's not a matter of can we do it, it's a matter of time."

KISS: Anonymous partner notification, built to beat the stigma

KISS is an app that anonymously alerts people when a past sexual partner tests positive for a sexually transmitted infection. Founder and CEO Max Morefield got the idea during the COVID-19 pandemic, when contact tracing became part of daily life. He was living with a friend who was a doctor and asked why nothing similar existed for STIs. His friend agreed it was a good idea, and Morefield assumed someone had already built it. When his research turned up nothing, the idea grew into a company, which Morefield now runs while completing a part-time MBA in entrepreneurship at Eastern Michigan University.

"Hooking up is as easy as swiping right," Morefield says, but partner notification hasn't caught up. KISS users create an anonymous profile with no name or phone number and receive a randomized QR code. When two people meet, they scan each other's codes and KISS stores the connection. If a user later tests positive, the app instantly and anonymously notifies every stored partner without revealing who tested positive or when the encounter occurred. "KISS remembers so you don't have to," he says. A partner without the app can scan the QR code with a phone camera and enter an anonymous email address to receive notifications.

As a gay man, Morefield grew up aware of the stigma around HIV and STIs. An abnormal human papillomavirus screening a few years ago made him think about people who don't have the health education he had. "If this app can save someone's life, that would make all the difference in the world," he says. KISS also teaches users about consent and prevention, including the fact that many STIs show no symptoms. An infectious disease expert and a certified sexologist advise the company on when to send notifications for each infection.

Early on, Morefield did his research and even designed logos, but he didn't know how to grow the idea into a company. The first thing he applied for was SPARK's startup services, which take on early-stage tech companies as clients, and getting accepted was the first outside sign that the idea could become a real business. Through SPARK, he received a Business Accelerator Fund award and was connected to vendors for help on his website, animated video, copywriting and trademark, as well as to entrepreneurs-in-residence and SPARK's Entrepreneur Boot Camp. SPARK also supported the app's launch marketing, and Morefield credits Nash-Wong with teaching him to take criticism without getting defensive. "They've been the cornerstone of everything that I've been able to do," he says.

Operating in Ypsilanti also puts KISS close to the college-age audience it most needs to reach. Morefield earned his undergraduate degree at EMU and lived in Ypsilanti for years. "There's a lot of resources there, and there's a lot of people that want to help," he says. "But you've got to go out, and you've got to reach out to them."

KISS is now working on an updated version of the app and raising money from angel investors and venture capital firms to scale. Over the long term, Morefield wants to connect a sexual health system he describes as fragmented, bringing education, testing, partner notification and access to treatment into a more connected experience. As the company grows, he plans to work alongside clinics and prevention organizations so a person who receives an exposure notification can get the care they need, while protecting privacy and reducing stigma. "Anonymous partner notification is an important foundation for that larger vision," he says.

What the combination says about Ypsi

"These are just three of the amazing startups working out of our Ypsilanti incubator space," Nash-Wong says. "I think this sample does a great job representing the range of great companies getting their start in Ypsi, and just a hint of the world of problems waiting to be solved."

SPARK works with businesses from idea through growth stage, and Nash-Wong says timing matters more than any single program. "I think the most important thing we do is connect entrepreneurs to resources at the right time in the growth of the company," she says. The incubator adds something no single program can: giving founders conference rooms and shared services along with neighbors who are working through the same problems and willing to share what they've learned.

For a founder deciding where to build, these three companies make a strong case for choosing Ypsilanti, where everything a founder needs is within five miles. Mbility and KISS started here because their founders had roots in the city, and FlmLnk stayed because the incubator gave it a professional home and a network of advisers. Founders at any stage can learn more about SPARK's services for startups.