Pure Pitch surprise twist: Techweek competition adds pre-teen innovator to KC startup lineup
October 8, 2018 | Startland News Staff
In a surprise announcement Monday, organizers of the Pure Pitch Rally announced the third annual pitch competition would feature the Kansas City pre-teen innovator behind the Storm Sleeper.
Update: Click here to find out who won big at the Pure Pitch Rally.
Donald Hawkins, CitySmart
Julia Luetje — a Barstow School student from Leawood, who at 10 years old won Frito-Lay’s $250,000 Dreamvention grand prize winner for her noise-reduction invention — joins established entrepreneur Donald Hawkins, founder of the white label, SaaS platform CitySmart, and eight early stage startups Wednesday in the fast-paced, invite-only pitch event during Techweek Kansas City.
Click here to learn more about Luetje’s Storm Sleeper device.
Pure Pitch contestants are vying for $30,000 in cash and $500,000 in Amazon AWS Activate credits, as well as $50,000 in tech resources from Full Scale, the high-growth talent development startup helmed by Startup Hustle podcast hosts Matt DeCoursey and Matt Watson. Prizes are awarded by “land sharks,” who each give $1,000 to companies of their choice, but take no equity in exchange.
Startup competitors include:
- Sara Baker, FastDemocracy
- Rhonda Dolan, Üdo
- Brian Kearns, HipHire
- Lauren Lawrence, Stenovate
- Erin Little, Rx Hackers
- Carlanda McKinney, Raaxo
- Kirby Montgomery, TheraWe Connect
- Aubrey Young, Fluence
“For our third year, we have the magic aligned — the land sharks, the funding, the velocity of ideas and our networking mission,” said Karen Fenaroli, founder of Pure Pitch Rally and CEO and founder of talent consultancy Fenaroli & Associates. “Why does the Pure Pitch Rally work in Kansas City? We have a hunger to help others, and this means showing up as mentors, as angel funders and as a community. The pitch works in this great Midwest city because of startup mentor friends like Polsinelli, Circle Sideways, BKD, Amazon and Full Scale.”
Some of the new and returning land sharks include such high-profile funders as Terry Dunn, DD Ranch Ventures; Pam Berneking, chief commercial officer, CommunityAmerica Credit Union; Matt Watson, CEO, Stackify and FullScale.io; Angela Hurt, CEO, Veracity Consulting, Inc.; Scott Hedrick, CEO, Pro Athlete Inc.; Jill Groebl, senior vice president of client services, Intouch Solutions; Ryan Merket, Amazon BD Startups; Lesa Mitchell, managing director, Techstars Kansas City; and Keith Molzer, general partner, Flyover Capital.
Featured Business
2018 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
How Kansas City’s new airport terminal became a sprawling art gallery for 28 diverse creatives
Every major milestone in Kathy Minhsin Liao’s life has been marked by travel, she shared, making airports synonymous with transition. “My [art]work at the new terminal is called ‘Hello and Goodbye,’ and it touches on my personal experience of the fluidity of travel. When you’re at the airport, you’re in that limbo space of thinking…
$2M in federal funds secured for Disney’s forgotten ‘cradle of Hollywood animation’ in KC
A decades-long effort to redevelop Walt Disney’s original Laugh-O-gram animation studios at 31st and Forest, along the Troost corridor, will receive $2 million in federal funding, as officially announced last week by Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II. The influx of funding should generate “momentum” to raise the remaining money needed to complete the project, said Gary…
KC’s Westside neighborhood awarded $1M from feds to reconnect community split by I-35
A newly announced $1 million grant is expected to help reestablish a Kansas City neighborhood that was cut off from itself and opportunity thanks to past transportation infrastructure decisions — part of a $1 billion plan to right what many call a decades-long wrong largely perpetrated against historic communities of color. In a first round…
‘Work to support our innovators is never done’: NXTUS leadership transition follows massive impact expansion
WICHITA — NXTUS, a nonprofit working to connect startup founders with community resources, capital and customers, on Tuesday announced a top-level leadership change while celebrating milestones in the rollout of its work to help innovators and entrepreneurs grow “companies of significance” in Kansas. Mary Beth Jarvis, who joined Wichita-based NXTUS as executive director in August 2019,…