Midwest VC, area startup vet join Firebrand Ventures following $17.7M fund raise
April 25, 2018 | Bobby Burch
On the heels of smashing its fundraising goal, Firebrand Ventures has added a pair of new team members.
The Kansas City-based seed fund is welcoming Cincinnati venture capitalist Wendy Lea as an advisor and Kansas City startup vet Maranda Manning as fund associate, said managing director John Fein.
Lea brings a wealth of investment and business experience as well as a global network to Firebrand’s already impressive advisory board. She is now CEO of Cintrifuse, a public-private partnership organization that helps build the Cincinnati tech scene. Lea is also a board member of Techstars and several startups. In 2012 and 2013, Lea was recognized as a Women of Influence in Silicon Valley and San Francisco.
Lea joins a powerhouse advisory board at Firebrand. Techstars CEO David Cohen, Kansas City venture capitalist Keith Harrington, Brian McClendon, former Uber vice president of maps, and Next Coast Ventures co-founder Tom Ball each help Firebrand via its advisory board.
Manning previously worked with Fein while he served as managing director of the Techstars-led Sprint Accelerator where she led day-to-day operations of the program. Most recently Manning served as director of marketing for Kansas City-based tech startup SquareOffs.
”I’m very excited to be working with Maranda again and to welcome Wendy to our stellar advisory team,” Fein wrote in a company blog. “I look forward to the great things I know both will bring to the fund’s mission of investing in exceptional founders!”
Firebrand recently raised $17.7 million for tech ventures in the Midwest, exceeding its initial goal by about 250 percent.
The Firebrand Ventures fund will invest its $17.7 million in about 10 to 12 Midwest startups per year with an average check size of $200,000, Fein said. The fund’s portfolio currently includes 12 companies, including Super Dispatch, FitBark and Sickweather, which call the Kansas City metro home.
2018 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Build-A-Bear founder joins VFA’s board, lauding group as an ‘onramp’ to entrepreneurship for overlooked young professionals
ST. LOUIS — A hometown founder and entrepreneurial icon is joining the board of one of the region’s premiere work placement opportunities for early-career professionals. Maxine Clark, founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop — the teddy-bear-themed retailer she launched in 1997 in St. Lous — is the latest appointment to the national board of directors for Venture…
Leveraging KC’s resources: How the right people at the right time can unlock a startup’s potential
The level of collaboration seen in Kansas City’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is unmatched by peer communities, said Jill Meyer, noting it’s not a phenomenon that developed by accident. And it takes transparency and trust, she added. “There is a lot of work that resource partners do to make sure that our companies and our founders have…
Looking for investors? A startup’s first ask shouldn’t be for money, leading VCs say
Most startup founders think of funding as transactional, Darcy Howe shared, but it’s actually relational. “You’ve got to have relationships with people long before they’ll fund and that includes angels and all the others,” the KCRise Fund founding managing director told a crowd gathered at UMKC’s Bloch Executive Hall for Startland News’ Kansas City Startups…
This meal is metal: Elephant Wings rocks concert of flavors with chef’s Indian fusion setlist
Ameet Malhotra’s just-released cover of Indian fusion is fuel to the fire of that which diners’ desire, the chef and owner of Elephant Wings said. Newly opened this month at Parlor KC in the Crossroads, two of the restaurant’s popular menu items include Malhotra’s tikka masala poutine and the Bombay-mi — his version of the…