Just funded: Trio of startups join Digital Sandbox KC, emerging onto competitive innovation scene

Not only will proof-of-concept funding from one of Kansas City’s most pivotal startup supporters help CEO Gharib Gharibi rapidly iterate development of his company, the Archia founder said; Digital Sandbox KC connects him to a thriving local tech ecosystem at a crucial inflection point for his artificial intelligence-based solutions.

Andrew Rademacher and Gharib Gharibi, Archia

“We are excited to leverage both the capital and the Technology Venture Studio‘s network to accelerate our go-to-market efforts and establish Kansas City as a hub for AI innovation,” said Gharibi, noting the funding will support Archia’s mission for accelerating safe adoption of AI agents. 

His startup was one of three emerging Kansas City companies just announced as recipients of up to $20,000 in Digital Sandbox KC funding, as well as access to coordinator Technology Venture Studio’s community, mentors, investor connections and technical project support.

Companies selected for the program have demonstrated exceptional potential for growth and innovation, organizers said..

“We’re honored that we can fuel the growth of these next great innovations,” said Jill Meyer, senior director of Technology Venture Studio, which houses Digital Sandbox KC. “All three startups have promising value propositions and deep expertise that we feel makes them well positioned to be competitive in their markets.”

The newly funded Digital Sandbox companies include:

• Archia Inc. (Gharib Gharibi, Andrew Rademacher), Overland Park, Kansas — Archia is the only compliance-ready runtime to build and deploy AI agents at scale. Using Archia, companies can focus on building and testing the logic of their AI agents via a descriptive language (e.g., English), instead of spending months building the underlying infrastructure, which is the reason 95 percent of AI initiatives fail, according to recent MIT research.

• Cyphra Autonomy (Sean Ward, Dietrich Kruse), Olathe, Kansas — Cyphra Autonomy provides autonomous, robotic material moving solutions to streamline construction operations.

• OverSite LLC (Douglas Bonebrake, Janet Malcom), Overland Park, Kansas — OverSite LLC is a clinical technology company focused on modernizing biospecimen collection and management for clinical research. Its flagship platform, OverSite, gives all parties enhanced visibility into the collection, handling and status of samples, which is critical to clinical trials. By safeguarding valuable patient contributions and accelerating study timelines, OverSite helps ensure that clinical trials run safer, faster and with greater reliability. (Digital Health KC company)

The startups join 239 other companies that have received support from the program since 2013.

Click here to share your project idea with Digital Sandbox KC and apply for funding.