Woman-led

Healium’s mental fitness wearables earn innovation award from world’s largest tech show

A Columbia-based startup’s patented technology that brings wearable biometric data to life via virtual and augmented reality apps has earned a major industry honor, announcing Healium’s selection for a 2022 Innovation Award from the Consumer Technology Association. The awards program is an annual competition honoring outstanding design and engineering in 27 consumer technology product categories….

Pabst entry logo at 9th & State

Some mysteries at historic 9th & State might never be solved — and bar owner Heather Hamilton is OK with it

Feeling invincible is a thing of the past, Heather Hamilton said, revealing a diagnosis that stopped her in her tracks and poured a change of perspective for the West Bottoms bar owner.  “Knowing that I’m gene-positive for Huntington’s disease has made me even more motivated to make a difference,” Hamilton said, noting the disease has…

Madoka Koguchi and Jackie Nguyen, Cafe Cà Phê; 2021 AltCap Your Biz grand prize winner

KC’s first Vietnamese coffee shop brews $20K at AltCap Your Biz; other winners include an urban farm, development company and selfie studio

Cafe Cà Phê can now afford to build bathrooms in its anticipated brick-and-mortar coffee location, Jackie Nguyen teased on Instagram after being awarded the grand prize at the 2021 AltCap Your Biz: Pitch Competition. “The $20,000 will go toward helping build that out — getting new appliances, [hiring] new employees because we’ve outgrown our cart….

Gavin Dell, Hollywood Animation Academy; Shelly Cooper, SureShow; Jill and Justin Bertelsen, Crib Coaching; and Craig Boyle, What Duh Fog

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

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…

Lisa Nguyen, Telehue Food

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

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…