Upwardly mobile.

• Author: Martin, Cathy
• Position: NCTREND: Triangle Region

About five years ago, with his family's wireless bill skyrocketing, David Morken, founder of Raleigh-based Bandwidth and father of six, set out to develop a cheaper alternative to traditional wireless plans. His company, which sells voice and messaging services to businesses, launched Republic Wireless, a mobile-phone service that uses Wi-Fi calling instead of cellular whenever available ("Calling ahead," September 2013).

With Republic achieving profitability for the first time in 2016, Bandwidth in December spun it into a separate company, padding it with $30 million for marketing and product development. Started with a team of about five, and coinciding with a $20 million capital raise in March 2011, Republic now has 160 employees and annual revenue of about $100 million, spokeswoman Cherie Gary says. The spinoff made sense because many Bandwidth customers have become direct competitors of Republic, Gary says.

Republic is one of a handful of companies pioneering "Wi-Fi first" technology, which involves sending and receiving calls over less costly Wi-Fi rather than cellular networks since only a small percentage of calls are made out of range of a Wi-Fi hotspot.

"We've essentially made cellular towers the backup option/' says Chris Chuang, 38, who co-founded Republic with Morken and is now chief executive officer. The Stanford graduate joined Bandwidth in 2008 and became chief operating officer in 2010. Previous jobs included working as a strategy consultant for McKinsey in Silicon Valley and as vice president of strategic development at Motricity, a wireless company that was based in Durham until...