Profiles

Shakia Webb, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

New voice on capital access: If people aren’t already at the table, move the table to them

By Tommy Felts / July 16, 2021

Editor’s note: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a financial supporter of Startland News. This story was produced independently by Startland News’s nonprofit newsroom. [divide] From teller to business banker, Shakia Webb worked nearly every bank job, she recalled.  “Each role literally prepared me for the next,” Webb told Startland News, detailing her well-rounded resume…

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Dwayne Johnson Signe Du Ciel aka Santino

In the ring with Santino: How a KC-area French Bulldog became a championship showstopper

By Tommy Felts / July 16, 2021

Startland News’ Startup Road Trip series explores entrepreneurship taking root in rural America and Midwestern startup hubs outside the Kansas City metro. This series is possible thanks to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which leads a collaborative, nationwide effort to identify and remove large and small barriers to new business creation. [divide] Dwayne Johnson started…

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David Biga, Particle Space

Proptech startup closes $636K pre-seed round, building on real estate product collabs

By Tommy Felts / July 13, 2021

More than a half-million dollars in pre-seed funding has a Kansas City-built proptech startup movin’ on up, bringing it a few floors closer to realizing its goal of becoming Stripe for the real estate industry.  “It feels so unreal,” David Biga, founder and CEO, told Startland News Monday in announcement of the startup’s newly-closed $636,000…

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Matt Condon and Ed Enyeart, Bardavon

Talent off the charts: Bardavon recruits another former Cerner exec to build team equipped for rapid expansion

By Tommy Felts / July 8, 2021

To keep growing in the workers’ compensation industry — as well as expand into commercial healthcare and beyond — Bardavon Health Innovations needs an even stronger team at the top, said Matt Condon.  “I think Bardavon is going to be a bigger, more important company than we first anticipated,” Condon, founder and CEO of Bardavon,…

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A.J. Mellott, Ronawk

Olathe biotech startup represents Kansas in MassChallenge’s 50th accelerator program

By Tommy Felts / July 8, 2021

More than 3,000 startups across the world applied to the 2021 MassChallenge accelerator program with Olathe-based biotechnology lab Ronawk earning one of the 229 slots to participate, shared A.J. Mellott. “[MassChallenge] has a really good reputation for accelerating companies that are in the startup mode and growing,” said Mellott, who co-founded Ronawk in 2019 with…

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