Editor’s note: Startland News editors selected 10 high-growth, scaling Kansas City companies to spotlight for its annual Startups to Watch project. Now in its 11th year, this feature recognizes founders and startups that editors believe will make some of the biggest, most compelling news in the coming 12 months. The following is one of 2026’s picks.
Click here to view the full list of Startups to Watch and see how the companies (including this one) were selected.
Kansas City’s LAN Party is betting the future of digital community-making looks a lot like that of the past — friends gaming side-by-side, only now in a shared virtual space big enough to host thousands.
A “LAN party,” short for local area network party, is an old-school gathering where gamers bring their own computers, network them together and play under one roof — a communal energy the startup is re-creating online.
Founder and CEO Ryan Hesse said the idea was always simple: Make online gaming feel less isolating and more like a living room. The execution, however, is scaling fast.
After a mid-2025 open beta on Steam, the platform logged 50,000 downloads and an average six-hour playtime — a figure well above Steam’s typical engagement. About 10 percent of users have already crossed 20 hours.
A push to simplify the user interface and experience — to make an increasingly complex platform intuitive for first-time users — helped shift early negative reviews into positive ones.
“Being that I worked on the product, I know how to do everything … but if someone’s going to the application for the first time, they might not know,” said Hesse, who built the startup with his brother Evan Hesse. “We had to make things a lot more clear in it, which we did and ended up being really positive.”
It also freed Hesse to grow his team, now four full-time employees, including one former super-user who joined as a part-time quality assurance analyst.
Elevator pitch: LAN Party is a virtual 3D communication platform that replicates the experience of hanging out and gaming with friends in-person. In LAN Party, you can create your own virtual rooms with your own custom 3D assets, invite your friends, and hang out while streaming your live gameplay or any other video content to virtual “screens” for everyone to watch together.
- Founders: Ryan Hesse, Evan Hesse
- Headquarters: Prairie Village, Kansas
- Founding year: 2022
- Current employee count: 4
- Funding amount raised to date: $2 million
- Noteworthy programs: Digital Sandbox KC
What began as a niche tool for small friend groups is evolving into infrastructure for large-scale virtual gatherings. The Hesse brothers’ 2026 roadmap centers on a 1.0 public release — expected mid-to-late year — and a broader marketing push once the product leaves early access.
Evan and Ryan Hesse, co-founders of LAN Party, at the September 2025 Startup Crawl; courtesy photo
The full release will introduce a mobile companion app, enabling users to chat, stream, and manage rooms from anywhere. But the bigger vision is social architecture: a digital environment capable of hosting conventions, tournaments, and branded events — the kind that usually require rented halls and massive logistics budgets.
“We see it as a place where you can host expos and conventions,” Hesse said. “Or imagine a watch party for the Chiefs or Royals — a giant, themed movie-theater space where hundreds of fans are all watching together.”
LAN Party will stay on Steam for now — that’s where gamer-cores live — but the Hesse brothers plan to expand access through direct downloads, Linux and macOS compatibility, and, eventually, consoles.
Steam, Hesse noted, remains “for gamer gamers,” but the broader opportunity lies with corporate users, universities and fan communities seeking low-cost, immersive collaboration tools.
As the product matures, LAN Party’s strategy looks less like a gaming startup and more like a digital-venue platform — part entertainment, part infrastructure, Hesse said, calling it “a fraction of the work, a fraction of the cost” compared with in-person events.
10 Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2026
- Authentiya puts ethical AI to the test as students embrace controversial classroom tech
- CarePilot prescribes more patient time, fewer clicks for doctors as product line grows
- Cyphra Autonomy pairs robotics with heavy labor (and a light lift for job site users)
- dScribe tracks early momentum with West Coast-Midwest funding combinator
- The Good Game connects young athletes with on-demand sports experts
- LODAS Markets unlocks liquidity as timing pays off for founder’s investment
- Resonus wants local government to hear you — not just the loudest voices
- Roz uncovers dynamic momentum amid audit of its own shifting opportunities
- Sova Dating builds emotional matches with vibes, logistics and an unexpected viral moment
