Startups

David Roberson, Azella

How $90K from Fountain Innovation Fund could help Azella reach 10,000 financial advisors

David Roberson grew up watching his mother struggle with financial management, he shared, noting his family’s stresses could have been alleviated with the help of a financial advisor.  Combining his passions for digital marketing, web development, SEO, design and financial literacy, Roberson founded the marketing firm Azella — named for his mother.  “Azella is a…

Juaquan Herron, Venboo; Jill Bertelsen, Crib Coaching; Jordan Williams, Veeper; and David Roberson, Azella

These eight KC tech startups are circling Pure Pitch Rally with up to $1M on the line

Editor’s note: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a sponsor of Startland News. As a new cohort of pitchers prepare to toss their nets toward local land sharks at this month’s Pure Pitch Rally, the addition of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation as a key financial backer elevates the annual competition for spot-cash funding and…

KC’s PlaBook, Erkios selected for coveted $50K Arch Grants, boosting St. Louis startup scene

Two Kansas City companies are expected to be part of Arch Grants’ largest-ever selection of startups, earning spots in the highly competitive St. Louis grant program’s 35-member, nearly $2 million 2021 cohort. PlaBook, an edtech reading platform, and Erkios Systems, a cybersecurity hardware startup, were announced Oct. 1 as winning candidates for the program, which…

Professor Ranan Aktas, Maltepe University

Ronawk using stem cell tech developed at Olathe lab to advance liver cancer research in Turkey

A Kansas City-based biomanufacturing startup announced its first international customer Tuesday: a university team in Istanbul that was among the first to beta test Ronawk’s lauded T-Blocks. The maker of 3D cell culture products said the collaboration with Professor Ranan Aktas and the Cancer and Stem Cell Research Center at Maltepe University in Turkey will…

TechAccel St. Louis offices and lab space at the Bio Research Development & Growth (BRDG) Park on the campus of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

TechAccel expands in St. Louis with new facilities in ‘premier ag innovation ecosystem’

A Kansas City-based tech and equity company investing in scientific breakthroughs to produce healthier plants, animals and foods is tapping into abundant lab space at the other end of I-70, announcing Monday new offices in St. Louis. “It’s only fitting that we locate our team in the heart of the nation’s largest concentration of plant…