ScaleUP! KC welcomes 16 new entrepreneurs to the program

On Wednesday ScaleUP! KC welcomed 16 new entrepreneurs into its incubator program’s sixth cohort.

To qualify, ScaleUP! companies must be in business for at least two years, generate annual sales of between $150,000 and $750,000 and have the potential to reach to $1 million in sales. Startups from the latest cohort represent industries such as software development, healthcare, construction, consulting, cleaning services and more.

Since its launch in 2015, the program has cultivated 77 business owners’ skills. Alumni have gone on to expand facilities, raise capital, launch products and hire more employees.

Jill Meyer, program director of ScaleUP! KC, said that the program has proven to be impactful for the Kansas City entrepreneurial ecosystem.

“ScaleUP! KC has been—and continues to be—such a critical program for Kansas City’s small business entrepreneurs, those businesses, research shows us, that create jobs and fortify our local economy,” Meyer said in a release. “It provides already successful business owners with the tools, coaching, peer mentors—and especially the time and guidance—to focus on effective strategies that will help them scale their businesses.”

Funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration, ScaleUP! America awarded the University of Missouri-Kansas City one of the first program contracts nationwide.

On May 30, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation announced that ScaleUP! KC was one of the eight recipients of its KC Accelerator Challenge, awarding a grant to the program.

“Winning this award will help ScaleUP! further strengthen the success of our alumni with continued coaching and peer mentoring and help us reach deeper into the KC community to support the growth of KC’s small businesses,” Meyer said in a release.

Here are the members of ScaleUP!’s sixth cohort:

• Thomas Assel, Assel Consulting LLC,
• Chris Ayala, First Response Construction LLC
• Cristina Betts, MD HomeCare, LLC
• Sheryl Briggs, ClassApps LLC
• Dawn Cramer, Cramer Capital Management,
• John Crum, Crum Cleaning
• Kathy Gates, The Running Well Store
• Chris Goodwin, Insurance Pros
• April Kramer, Apple Pie Painting
• Nick Lewman, Matai Services
• Elizabeth McFadden, Novella Brandhouse Group, Inc,
• Mani Raman, Yotabites Consulting LLC
• Sara Noble, Noble Designs, Inc.
• Brendan O’Shaunghessy, Ocean & Sea
• Jennifer Rosenblatt, MusicSpoke
• Lori Worthington, Right Angle Advisors