And then there was one: Blooom the sole local firm left in national pitch contest
November 17, 2015 | Bobby Burch
Financial tech startup Blooom is the lone Kansas City-area company to advance in the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s “One in a Million” pitch competition
Out of an initial field of more than 350 companies, the Leawood-based firm advanced to the final round of five in the foundation’s pitch contest. The competition, which will conclude the morning of Nov. 18 during Global Entrepreneurship Week, will award $10,000 to one startup that previously participated in the foundation’s 1 Million Cups program.
The other four startups to advance in the contest are: SwineTech of New Sharon, Iowa; Upsie of Minneapolis, Minn.; DryBox of San Antonio, Texas; and My Solar of Los Angeles, California. Two other Kansas City-area companies — Idle Smart and AEGLE Palette — failed to advance to the final round of five.
A star-studded lineup of businesspeople from around the nation will be judging Blooom and the other four startups. Judges in the competition’s final round of five startups are: Marcelo Claure, CEO of Sprint; Nicole Glaros, chief product officer of Techstars; and Paul Kedrosky, managing partner of SK Ventures.
Kansas City Mayor Sly James will present the first-place team the grand prize of $10,000, while second- and third-place winners will receive $5,000 and $1,000, respectively.
The Kauffman Foundation will be providing a live stream of the competition 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Featured Business
2015 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
‘No regrets’: KC startup Knoda closing its doors
Rather than lamenting the death of their company, a team of startup founders is drawing valuable lessons from their entrepreneurial experience and forging ahead. Kansas City-based Knoda — which created a social platform allowing users to make, track and rank various predictions — recently announced to users that it was going to shut down operations.…
Without further ado, LaunchKC announces top 20 finalists
After weeks of application reviews, LaunchKC has announced the top 20 contenders in their Kansas City-based grant competition. With a special kudos to Kansas City, 12 of the top 20 are from the metro area. Of the remaining eight finalists, seven are from seven U.S. states; and one from Santiago, Chile. Three of these non-Kansas City…
GigaPower coming to northeastern Johnson County
AT&T announced this week that the company is expanding availability of U-Verse with GigaPower, its latest high-speed internet service aiming to compete against Google Fiber. The service is coming to Fairway, Mission Hills and Prairie Village, the company announced Monday. GigaPower appeared in the Kansas City metro area in February in parts of Kansas City,…
Startup families: 3 similarities between my new baby and business
Starting a company is hard. Having a baby is hard. Doing both at the same time is kind of insane. But one major advantage of living in the Midwest is that founders have the ability to do both. In the coming months other founders will share their stories, experiences, and advice for having the best…