Two Kansas City startups relocating to St. Louis to cash $50K Arch Grants awards
November 8, 2019 | Startland News Staff
Two Kansas City tech startups are on the move — winning spots in the Arch Grants competition, an “aggressive effort” to build St. Louis’ startup ecosystem.
Healthy Hip Hop and FastDemocracy were among 20 companies each earning $50,000 in equity-free cash grants through the selection, which also requires the startups run their businesses from St. Louis for at least a year.
Click here to learn more about the Arch Grants Global Startup Competition.
Led by Roy Scott, Healthy Hip Hop utilizes technology and the hip hop culture to help improve student learning environments and academic outcomes. It’s dual sided technology, with SaaS platform and mobile application empowers users to live stream, publish and share interactive content.
Scott and Healthy Hip Hop are the previous winners of $50,000 through LaunchKC in 2017, $25,000 from LEANLAB Education’s Lauch[ED] Day pitch contest in 2017, and $20,000 through the Regnier Venture Creation Challenge in 2018, among other funding and services awards secured in the metro. He also previously participated in Digital Sandbox KC, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s FastTrac program, and Pitch Perfect at the Enterprise Center in Johnson County.
Click here to read about Healthy Hip Hop’s 2018 reboot.
Anatolij Gelimson, Sara Baker, and Jill Kline, Fast Democracy
FastDemocracy is a federal, state, and local legislative analytics platform that provides users with a way to follow politics and take action. Using data-driven analytics and collaborative communications tools, the platform replaces political punditry with machine learning and data science; offers distinctive collaborative, communications and workflow tools; and creates an intuitive, user-friendly platform with comprehensive bill tracking capabilities.
“With our new, advanced analytics, we’re not only giving subscribers the ability to follow what’s happening in the legislature, but we’re also giving them the ability to predict outcomes and showing them the pathway to success,” co-founder Jill Kline told Startland News after FastDemocracy’s successful showing at the 2018 Pure Pitch Rally in Kansas City.
Click here to learn more about FastDemocracy.
Aleh Manchuliantsau and Anastasia Tkacheva, Planetarians
Other members of the 2019 Arch Grants cohort ranged in focus from New York-based womenswear and Columbia, Missouri-born storage tech to international perspectives on e-commerce and rubber production from sunflower plants.
Techstars Kansas City alum Planetarians — a Palo Alto, California, ingredient tech company, upcycling by-products and solid food waste into high-protein high fiber ingredients — also was among the Arch Grants selections.
Click here for a full list of Arch Grants winners.
Past Arch Grant Recipients are eligible to participate in the Chaifetz STLaunch competition for up to $1,000,000 in equity investment from Chaifetz Group, the private investment and venture capital firm of entrepreneur and investor Dr. Richard A. Chaifetz.
[divide]
This story is possible thanks to support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a private, nonpartisan foundation that works together with communities in education and entrepreneurship to create uncommon solutions and empower people to shape their futures and be successful.
For more information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn
Featured Business
2019 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
OP prescription software firm lands $2.7M
An Overland Park software company recently wrapped up a hefty funding round, according to its founder and CEO. Rx Savings Solutions, a business that works with other companies to manage employees’ monthly medications, secured $2.7 million in funding. Kansas City investors Dan Henry, CEO of NetSpend Corp., and Jeffrey Brown, chairman at StoreFinancial, led the…
LaunchKC winners reflect on ‘massive opportunity’
Once the dust settled on the LaunchKC grant recipient announcement, the champagne bottles popped. Founders from the 10 winning companies — parred down from a list of 500 — had reason to celebrate Friday afternoon between the promise of $50,000 and the chance to land some office space. Of the 10 recipient companies, six come…
Set your watch: 90 seconds with local innovators, entrepreneurs
It’s coming! Set your watch as we team up with FlatlandKC to highlight Kansas City’s innovators and entrepreneurs, all in 90 seconds. “90 on the Clock” premieres Wednesday, Sept. 23, with Callie England, founder of Rawxies, as she talks about her East Bottoms business and its raw, vegan, and gluten- and soy-free treats. The five-part series continues each Wednesday as the 90-second…
Meet the 10 startup winners of LaunchKC’s $50K
LaunchKC announced the winners of 10, $50,000 grants Friday during a celebration at the inaugural Techweek Kansas City conference. More than 40 judges evaluated pitches from 20 contest finalists, who pitched their companies Friday morning at Union Station before a crowd of about 100 people. LaunchKC kicked off in February and nabbed nearly 500 total applicants…