News

WATCH NOW: Kansas City Community Builders to Watch

By Tommy Felts / November 10, 2021

   Join Startland News for a celebratory broadcast that showcases the work of six local leaders with exceptional stories of community impact.  This mid-day broadcast — streaming at 11:30 a.m. as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) — features a musical performance by Golden Groves. This edition of Startland News Reports is presented in partnership with Fishtech Group.…

Demo day alert: 13 new Comeback KC Ventures fellows set for debut on GEW KC stage

By Tommy Felts / November 9, 2021

The first crop of Comeback KC Ventures fellows — entrepreneurs offering solutions from healthtech and edtech products to sports evaluations and an animation academy emerging in response to COVID-19 — is expected to highlight more than a dozen companies Thursday during a GEW KC innovation showcase. “The demo day will allow early participants in the…

How Finotta emerged from 2020’s perils with a leap of faith, $3M investment banked

By Tommy Felts / November 9, 2021

The through line of Parker Graham’s startup journey so far: resiliency. “People like to joke that cockroaches just don’t die,” laughed Graham, reflecting after his fintech company, Finotta — more pheonix rising than cockroach surviving — recently closed a $3 million seed funding round and completely changed the makeup of its team. “I feel like…

New in KC: Wichita-grown foodie whips up 4.5M TikTok, Youtube users with passion (and ramen) as her only guides

By Tommy Felts / November 9, 2021

Editor’s note: New in KC is an ongoing profile series that highlights newly relocated members of the Kansas City startup community, their reasons for a change of scenery, and what they’ve found so far in KC. This series is sponsored by C2FO, a Leawood-based, global financial services company. Click here to read more New in KC profiles. Lisa Nguyen was five…

Streets to tableside eats: Taco Tank gets off the ground, rolling into Crossroads food hall

By Tommy Felts / November 6, 2021

Streetside tacos are a thing of the past for Kansas City-stuffed Taco Tank, but a brick-and-mortar expansion into Parlor’s Crossroads food hall means the potential of its authentic, Mexican street food is just hitting the grill, Roman Raya said.  “We were sharing a kitchen before with four other food trucks as our commissary. It was…