PLOT digs into commercialization with $2M round, earns backing from KCRise Fund

Startland News’ Startup Road Trip series explores innovative and uncommon ideas finding success in rural America and Midwestern startup hubs outside the Kansas City metro. This series is possible thanks to Entrepreneurial Growth Ventures (EGV), a business unit of NetWork Kansas supporting innovative, high-growth entrepreneurs in the State of Kansas. [divide] WICHITA — A Wichita-based…

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‘Proud capitalist’ to young social entrepreneurs: It’s OK to make a buck while saving the world

Darcy Howe encouraged budding, would-be founders to think about ways they can effectively scale their mission-driven ideas, drawing on KCRise Fund’s model for social entrepreneurship. “Being socially mission-driven is not mutually exclusive to making money,” Howe, founder and managing director of KCRise Fund, told Enactus students gathered Tuesday during an end-of-year celebration for the University…

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Founder to founder: One day you’re eating cheap ramen, the next you’re KC’s big exit story; struggles define startups as much as success

Even after building a startup into one of Kansas City’s biggest exit success stories, the entrepreneurs and leaders behind BacklotCars don’t sit around to talk about their grand achievements when they reunite, said Anders Ericson; they reminisce about how the tech company nearly went out of business along the way. “Everyone always wants to ask…

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Fast-growing KC startup closes $20M in Series B funding to accelerate genetic progress in cattle

A well-muscled funding round is expected to help Lenexa-based Vytelle expand its global operations after having already scaled the agtech startup’s breakthrough in vitro fertilization, data capture, and AI-driven genetics tech to be easily accessed by more than half of the U.S. cow herd. “This is indicative of strong market interest in our products and…

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Startup’s swift action against siloed systems: Finding that ‘single version of truth’ hidden in the data 

This story is possible thanks to Entrepreneurial Growth Ventures (EGV), a business unit of NetWork Kansas supporting innovative, high-growth entrepreneurs in the State of Kansas. [divide] Celerity Enterprises is aiming no lower than industry modernization with its plug-and-play SaaS financial platform — designed to bring clarity to a world of industrial wholesale distribution that often is…

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