Editor’s note: Startland News editors selected 10 Kansas City scaling businesses to spotlight for its annual Startups to Watch list. Now in its 10th year, this feature recognizes founders and startups that editors believe will make some of the biggest, most compelling news in the coming 12 months. The following is one of 2025’s companies.

Click here to view the full list of Startups to Watch — presented by Morgan Stanley, and independently produced by Startland News — and see how the companies (including this one) were selected.

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Not even a year after launching, Hilltop Technologies is already disrupting the cybersecurity industry, co-founder Nick Gicinto shared. And surprisingly, he said, the Liberty-based startup is feeling embraced.

“Usually, disruptors are not well received,” explained Gicinto, who also is the chief information security officer at William Jewell College and a veteran of the CIA, Tesla, and Uber as an insider threat, intelligence, and security specialist. “The amount of work that we’ve accomplished in 10 months is not something that I expected, but I think it’s validating that what we’re doing is filling a need and people are excited.”

Gicinto and serial entrepreneur Conner Hazelrigg — assistant vice president of strategic innovation at William Jewell, managing director of Mathes Innovation Center, and founder of 1773 Innovation Co. — founded Hilltop Technologies in February 2024 after a cyber attack at their alma mater and employer William Jewell. 

ICYMI: Cybersecurity startup extends intelligence, from small biz to college (and wartime Ukraine)

They — along with one of Gicinto’s former coworkers at Tesla and Uber (his name remains confidential because of his involvement in other projects) and a majority-female staff — are now on a mission to bring cybersecurity innovation to those organizations traditionally left behind, like universities, non-profits, and small businesses, they said.

“There is a disproportionately large part of the population that is underserved when it comes to quality cyber at a price that they can afford,” Gicinto said. “So our goal has been to create a company that builds an ecosystem around education and quality — to protect Main Street, not Wall Street.”

“I think that’s what is different about Hilltop,” he added. “We do this so companies, organizations and institutions don’t have to hedge their bets on some type of catastrophic cyber attack wrecking their business or their institution, just because they didn’t have $100,000 to invest in cybersecurity defenses.”

To meet such needs, Hilltop developed proprietary technology for endpoint detection and response (EDR) and managed detection and response (MDR) capabilities and is partnering with students at William Jewell and SET University in Ukraine to provide real-world learning experience, Hazelrigg noted.

“It’s important that we bring in talent and create new talent in the students because these are the people who are going to be protecting these cyber spaces in the future,” she explained. “So if we’re not reinvesting in them while they’re students or while they’re interns, then we can’t expect anybody to see the growth of cybersecurity and see the importance of it.”

“What I think is most exciting to people is the model,” Gicinto added. “The fact that we have integrated students in a meaningful way for their education and to develop a cyber security product that stands up against industry leaders is something that — to our knowledge — nobody’s ever tried before in this way.”

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• Elevator pitch: Hilltop Technologies is redefining cybersecurity. Our innovative Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solution delivers smarter, faster threat detection at an affordable cost. 
• Founders: Conner Hazelrigg and Nick Gicinto
• Headquarters location: Split operations headquarters, with one location to be determined through the Launch KC grant in Kansas City, and a current headquarters in Liberty, Missouri. Plans include expanding locations as more university and academic partners are brought on board.
• Founding year: 2024
• Current employee count: 7 employees, 6 local interns, 2 interns abroad, and 5 contractors
• Funding amount raised to date: $1.2M in an angel round set at $2M
• Noteworthy investors: Hilltop Technologies has intentionally partnered with small private family offices and individual investors, fostering strong, aligned relationships.
• Noteworthy programs/accelerators/incubators completed: Hilltop Technologies was selected as a winner in the 2025 LaunchKC Liftoff Grants competition, receiving a $55,000 grant to support its growth and innovation in cybersecurity.

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In its first year, Hilltop is already seeing a lot of momentum, the co-founders shared. On top of launching its product and developing partnerships with William Jewell and SET, the co-founders earned a $55,000 grant from LaunchKC and launched an internship for high school students called Cipher that allows them to be dual enrolled at William Jewell in the cybersecurity curriculum.

Nick Gicinto and Conner Hazelrigg, Hilltop Technologies, pitch during LaunchKC’s 2024 event; photo by Taylor Wilmore, Startland News

“What makes me proud of the momentum is that — in less than a year — we’ve already built a program that is going to train the next generation of cyber practitioners right here in Kansas City,” Gicinto said.

In 2025, Hazelrigg and Gicinto expect to continue the momentum by closing a $2 million angel funding round early in the year, growing the startup’s client base, and continuing to grow educational partnerships, the co-founders noted.

“That’s one of the reasons we think Launch KC is so cool is because we get to come down to KC and start to branch out that way,” Hazelrigg added.

Hilltop’s product line could also grow with some initiatives born from student research ideas, Gicinto said. 

“We get to act as a mini incubator for students as part of their education — not just the practical skills — but also the development of software and security products,” he explained. “I’m really excited to see what those offerings are going to be as we move forward because the investment in Hilltop is also an investment in students.”

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10 Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2025

• Good Oak scales social venture to boost biodiversity in farming, herd ag industry toward change
• Icorium matches a complex environmental threat with Kansas-powered innovation
• LPOXY Therapeutics punches back at gut infection (and a foe with a billion-year head start)
• Marma pushes women’s nutrition to the forefront, birthing resources on demand
• Noonan scores under par success with digital caddie as golf market earns deepage
• OLEO roasts plans for slow-drip craft retail concepts, starting with coffee (and soon a diner)
• Raise Health tasks AI tools with a multiplier mission — detecting mental health struggles early
• Scout charts early adoption with digital veterinary workflow platform, diagnosing industry burnout
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