Profiles

Karen_Fenaroli, photo by Mikaela Wendell

KCultivator Q&A: Karen Fenaroli orchestrates investment game from behind home plate

By Tommy Felts / July 27, 2019

Editor’s note: KCultivators is a lighthearted profile series to highlight people who are meaningfully enriching Kansas City’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The KCultivator Series is sponsored by Plexpod, a progressive coworking platform offering next generation workspace for entrepreneurs, startups, and growth-stage companies of all sizes. Long hours, frequent travel and tough decisions can mold who you are…

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Ruby Jean's Whole Foods

Natural fit: Ruby Jean’s opening new juicery inside busy Whole Foods

By Tommy Felts / July 25, 2019

The fresh-pressed, multi-year deal to open a brick-and-mortar Ruby Jean’s Juicery inside a high-traffic Whole Foods location puts Chris Goode in a position to scale his clean concept even further beyond Kansas City, he said. “We’re in the healthy food space and Whole Foods has cornered that market pretty broadly. With its parent company now…

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Tammie Wahaus, ELIAS Animal Health

Biotech firms: Health innovation can’t grow in KC with wet lab space in such short supply

By Tommy Felts / July 25, 2019

ELIAS Animal Health is advancing a technology that can fundamentally change how cancer is treated in both humans and animals, said CEO Tammie Wahaus, yet finding lab space in the metro has been one of the biotech startup’s biggest tests.   “We’re doing a lot of cell culture work, which requires wet lab space, but there…

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Photo courtesy of United American Hemp

Two novice gardeners in an Olathe lab could harvest Kansas’ first legal hemp harvest

By Tommy Felts / July 23, 2019

Potential for a high-yield payoff grows with each day as Michael Wilson and James DeWitt inch closer to their first hemp harvest — likely the first in the state in modern times, they said. “It’s the jumping off point to create a repeatable process,” said DeWitt, co-founder and CEO at United American Hemp. “We’ve learned…

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Lisa Bledsoe, Tea-Biotics Kombucha

Tea-Biotics bottles $1.2M in quick funding round; taps into thirsty new markets for kombucha

By Tommy Felts / July 22, 2019

From jar-lined countertops in her kitchen to a 13,000-square-foot facility brimming with brew tanks, Lisa Bledsoe’s mission to pour Kansas City a more refreshing bottle of “booch” is scaling fast, she explained over a freshly tapped glass of her “Beachlife”-flavored kombucha.  “I think it can be an inspiration for younger women or even other women…

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