ScaleUP! KC welcomes 16 new entrepreneurs to the program
June 7, 2017 | Meghan LeVota
On Wednesday ScaleUP! KC welcomed 16 new entrepreneurs into its incubator program’s sixth cohort.
To qualify, ScaleUP! companies must be in business for at least two years, generate annual sales of between $150,000 and $750,000 and have the potential to reach to $1 million in sales. Startups from the latest cohort represent industries such as software development, healthcare, construction, consulting, cleaning services and more.
Since its launch in 2015, the program has cultivated 77 business owners’ skills. Alumni have gone on to expand facilities, raise capital, launch products and hire more employees.
Jill Meyer, program director of ScaleUP! KC, said that the program has proven to be impactful for the Kansas City entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“ScaleUP! KC has been—and continues to be—such a critical program for Kansas City’s small business entrepreneurs, those businesses, research shows us, that create jobs and fortify our local economy,” Meyer said in a release. “It provides already successful business owners with the tools, coaching, peer mentors—and especially the time and guidance—to focus on effective strategies that will help them scale their businesses.”
Funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration, ScaleUP! America awarded the University of Missouri-Kansas City one of the first program contracts nationwide.
On May 30, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation announced that ScaleUP! KC was one of the eight recipients of its KC Accelerator Challenge, awarding a grant to the program.
“Winning this award will help ScaleUP! further strengthen the success of our alumni with continued coaching and peer mentoring and help us reach deeper into the KC community to support the growth of KC’s small businesses,” Meyer said in a release.
Here are the members of ScaleUP!’s sixth cohort:
- Thomas Assel, Assel Consulting LLC,
- Chris Ayala, First Response Construction LLC
- Cristina Betts, MD HomeCare, LLC
- Sheryl Briggs, ClassApps LLC
- Dawn Cramer, Cramer Capital Management,
- John Crum, Crum Cleaning
- Kathy Gates, The Running Well Store
- Chris Goodwin, Insurance Pros
- April Kramer, Apple Pie Painting
- Nick Lewman, Matai Services
- Elizabeth McFadden, Novella Brandhouse Group, Inc,
- Mani Raman, Yotabites Consulting LLC
- Sara Noble, Noble Designs, Inc.
- Brendan O’Shaunghessy, Ocean & Sea
- Jennifer Rosenblatt, MusicSpoke
- Lori Worthington, Right Angle Advisors
2017 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Digital divide initiative could help 9,000 Kansas City households
More than 9,000 Kansas City households are among the potential beneficiaries of a new national digital divide initiative. Comcast recently partnered with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s ConnectHome initiative, marking the largest expansion to Comcast’s Internet Essentials program. Now all Kansas City households within a Comcast service area that receive HUD housing…
New Startland reporter wants to immerse herself in KC’s culture of innovation
Two months ago today, I packed up the last of my belongings in my Columbia, Mo. apartment. And to be frank, I was slightly embarrassed to be moving back in with my parents in Independence, Mo. A recent graduate from the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, it seemed that almost everybody I knew was…
Exclusive: John Fein departing Techstars to lead new $7M Midwest venture fund
After three years with the Kansas City-based Sprint Accelerator, John Fein is moving on to lead a venture fund that has ambitious Midwestern plans. Fein, who’s served as the managing director at the Techstars-led accelerator since 2014, will serve his last day with the organization on July 31. With decades of fast-paced startup experience, Fein…
Mid-America Angels set for second consecutive record-breaking year
The Mid-America Angels is poised to make 2016 a record-breaking year. The area investment group already has deployed $1.7 million via seven deals in the first six months of 2016, setting pace for its biggest year of investment in its ten-year history. In 2015, the firm set a record for its amount of capital deployed,…