News Stories

Lava Dreams; photo courtesy of Stellar Image Studios

Artist Q&A: KC musician Lava Dreams brings fans to their feet with her original rhythms

Music gives people an outlet to feel, dance and express themselves, shared 27-year-old musician, Lava Dreams. She’s dreaming of doing the same.  Hailing from Kansas City, Julia Hamilton grew up surrounded by music and officially became a solo artist in 2018, now performing as Lava Dreams. In 2020, she released her EP, “GOOD ENERGY +…

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, 2021 State of the State Address, photo courtesy of the State of Missouri

Missouri could put $1M back into startup support after COVID killed most-recent funding

A budget plan released this week by Gov. Mike Parson includes a $1 million allocation for the Missouri Technology Corporation — a popular public-private initiative boosting startups that saw its investment efforts defunded last year because of COVID-19-related shortfalls. “It is important that we continue to follow through on key investments in workforce development and infrastructure,”…

BetaBlox relaunching its popular demo day as part of documentary-style reality TV show

BetaBlox is adding more reality to its demo day — pushing the entrepreneur incubator’s hotly anticipated event to the summer and retooling the format as documentary-style vignettes that feed into casting for a full-season reality TV show. “This opportunity is a win-win-win,” said Weston Bergmann, founder and lead investor at BetaBlox, in a message to entrepreneurs…

Brooke Mullen, Sapahn

Pipeline pitch winner sells practical business moves (and leather) with socially conscious ethos

Brooke Mullen’s ability to pivot with silky smooth ease helped the Lincoln entrepreneur build a bridge to surging revenue in 2020, as well as win best pitch Thursday during a showcase of Pipeline’s latest fellowship class. “With a lot of our business being direct-to-consumer and actual live events, we had to completely change as all…

ScaleUP! Kansas City Cohort 11

Meet 20 scaling companies making the leap with ScaleUP! KC’s latest small biz cohort

Successfully scaling entrepreneurs take the time to work on their businesses — rather than just in them, Jill Hathaway said, emphasizing the transformative power ScaleUP! Kansas City brings to the 20 top-tier business owners newly participating in its 11th cohort. “This intensive program has had a profound impact on the small businesses it serves during the…