Kauffman Foundation dishes $840K to 8 area accelerators
May 30, 2017 | Bobby Burch
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is hitting the gas on its support of area accelerator programs.
As part of the 2016 KC Accelerator Challenge, the Kauffman Foundation announced Tuesday that it’s awarded a total of $840,000 in grants to eight local venture accelerator programs.
“Our goal is to increase entrepreneurial success in Kansas City through high-quality support programs because we know from recent research that more startups lead to higher productivity, wage growth and quality of life for the entire community,” Kauffman Foundation CEO Wendy Guillies said in a release. “We believe the startups are empowered when they connect to established resources. The KC Accelerator Challenge directly supports organizations that are demonstrably increasing early-stage entrepreneurs’ success and accelerating business through growth.”
The foundation’s accelerator challenge aims to cultivate the area’s entrepreneurial ecosystem through accelerators that provide mentoring, access to resources and other services helping entrepreneurs scale their companies. Grant recipients are required to meet a funding match of Kauffman Foundation funds.
Victor Hwang, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation, said that accelerators are key to a vibrant entrepreneurial community.
“Kansas City has many of the ingredients for a strong ecosystem for entrepreneurs,” Hwang said in a release. “The KC Accelerator Challenge is part of the Kauffman Foundation’s comprehensive approach to address barriers that too many of our entrepreneurs face in Kansas City and the Midwest.”
Area accelerator organizations receiving grants and sponsorships are:
- BetaBlox
- Enterprise Center of Johnson County’s Investment Bootcamp
- Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program’s Amp Up
- Sprint Accelerator
- Techstars Kansas City
- Project United Knowledge
- Rightfully Sewn
- ScaleUp! Kansas City
The challenge is part of the Kauffman Foundation’s Zero Barriers movement, which is a national campaign to address barriers that entrepreneurs face. Another program within Zero Barriers is Inclusion Open, a grant program that aims to enable champions of underrepresented entrepreneurs to expand their services to topple barriers.
Featured Business
2017 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Kansas City milkman Matt Shatto launches new ag tech company
Matt Shatto — co-founder of the the popular Kansas City dairy Shatto Milk Company — is trailblazing new sustainable tech to help farmers reap more crops and reduce costs. Launched in 2016, Kansas City-based TerraManus Technologies created a patented device that helps farmers better manage soil and allocate water resources. The “TerraStar Disk” looks like a plastic…
Google Fiber losing ‘hundreds’ of employees but continues KC expansion
Google Fiber is reportedly trimming its employee count after announcing its new CEO. Business Insider reports that months after its former CEO Craig Barratt resigned, Google Fiber has hired Gregory McCray as the new leader of Access, the division of Google’s parent company Alphabet that includes Google Fiber. The gigabit provider also will lose “hundreds”…
Urban TEC is building a more diverse STEM workforce
Despite a U.S. tech workforce that’s grown more than 80 percent in the last 20 years, less than one percent of black women are employed in STEM careers. As a black women in technology herself, Ina Montgomery took this statistic as a call to action to empower black women. “You’re going to need have a…
Kansas City Airbnb hosts may face fees with proposed rules
One year after a public meeting to cull input on “short-term stay” rules in Kansas City, officials have released a proposed ordinance on how Airbnb hosts can operate. The proposal would require that Airbnb and HomeAway hosts in Kansas City, Mo. register and pay annual registration fees for short-term renting of their property, which is…