Funding

RFP360 team

Five Elms Capital doubles down on RFP360, bringing its investment to $12M

By Tommy Felts / March 16, 2020

RFP360 proved its worth and ability to push itself in the months following Five Elms Capital’s first investment in the software platform, said Thomas Kershisnik. The payoff? Five Elms today announced a second strategic growth investment in RFP360 — bringing its total backing of the Leawood-based startup to $12 million, said Kershisnik, managing director at…

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Jody Brazil, Rich Mogull, and Mike Rothman, DisruptOps

DisruptOps raises $9M Series A with serial entrepreneur, cyber security veterans taming the cloud

By Tommy Felts / March 10, 2020

With security threats to cloud-enabled businesses outpacing the ability of most companies to respond, a fresh funding infusion is expected to help DisruptOps strengthen its team and its ability to react, said Jody Brazil. The Kansas City startup — a SaaS-based cloud security management platform that helps enterprises address the critical challenges of cloud security at…

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Tesseract Ventures team

AI, robotics innovator Tesseract Ventures secures $2M investment from UMB Capital

By Tommy Felts / March 5, 2020

One of Kansas City’s leading startups is making good on a teaser that it’s collaborating with local “titans of industry” to defy the boundaries of space and time through next-generation technologies. Tesseract Ventures — which uses robots, smart spaces, wearables and connected platforms in its mission to make industries smarter, better connected and more efficient…

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Toby Rush explores venture studio concept to help startups avoid pre-seed mistakes

By Tommy Felts / February 26, 2020

Not enough founders in the pre-seed funding stage get the help they need to successfully build their emerging startups, said Toby Rush.  “How can you find, focus and accelerate people before they’ve raised money, before they’ve built their team, before they’ve made all of the mistakes that I’ve made plenty of times and that most…

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Hunter Browning, Ben Schultz, and Tyler Prochnow, LaborChart

LaborChart builds its value with ‘robust’ Series A capital injection from Five Elms

By Tommy Felts / January 30, 2020

A recently closed injection of growth and scale capital will help Kansas City-based LaborChart strengthen its team, expand the company’s market position and accelerate domestic and international growth, said Ben Schultz. The move — finalized in the final days of 2019 and announced Thursday — is expected to jolt the team from a headcount in…

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