Just funded: 8 tech products get Digital Sandbox KC boost to strengthen KC’s innovation economy

Project funding and extended resources are expected to help more than a half-dozen emerging startups — including six in the digital health space — whose innovative technology concepts are forging the future of entrepreneurship in Kansas City, said Maria Meyers.

“This latest group of Digital Sandbox KC awardees reflects the depth of innovation emerging across our region,” said Meyers, executive director of the UMKC Innovation Center, announcing eight newly funded startups through the center’s Technology Venture Studio and its Digital Sandbox KC program.

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Funded projects range from AI-powered solutions and digital health technologies to platforms that improve learning, credentialing and quality of life, she added, noting the Kansas City-based entrepreneurs are developing practical solutions to real-world challenges.

“We’re proud to support these founders as they validate their ideas, accelerate commercialization and strengthen Kansas City’s innovation economy,” said Meyers.

Click here to learn more about Digital Sandbox KC and to apply for funding.

The Digital Sandbox KC awardees represent the program’s ongoing commitment to support technological advancement, she added. Among the funded projects: a digital platform that improves women’s health literacy and management developed by a UMKC medical graduate student, as well as an AI-powered courtroom tool that already has made headlines within LaunchKC’s Social Venture Studio cohort.

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The eight companies join more than 250 other startups that have received support from the program since 2013. Funded startups gain access to the Technology Venture Studio community, mentors, investor connections and technical project support.

Meet the new companies joining the Sandbox:

• BoxTeller (Troy Kranendonk), Overland Park, Kansas — Creates personalized, adaptive storybooks that grow with a child’s reading ability. By combining customizable characters, graphic novel storytelling and adaptive reading levels into its technology, BoxTeller enables children of different ages and reading levels to experience the same adventure while building confidence and literacy skills. Every story is designed to make reading personal, engaging and fun, helping children see themselves in the story and fostering a lifelong love of reading.
• Animal Deterrent Solutions (Michael DeSa, Bruce Benteman, Barrett Sydnor), Overland Park, Kansas — An AI-powered, camera-vision enabled laser system that autonomously detects and deters nuisance birds from agricultural and other commercial operations without human intervention, and in ways that pests cannot predict or avoid. The system is designed to provide deterrence 24 hours a day, year-round.
• Magis (Thaddeus Diamond, Courtney Wachal), Kansas City, Missouri — An AI-powered platform that transforms courtroom audio and messy documentation into searchable case data, program tracking and actionable reporting for specialty courts. Purpose built, the platform meets the specific requirements of court programs for structured participant tracking, compliance monitoring and detailed record-keeping, resulting in reduced recidivism and stronger judicial funding. Magis helps municipal and specialty courts better manage case data, track intervention outcomes and generate grant applications, helping courts better understand the users they serve to build safer communities.
• CredentialMate (Tricia Nguyen), Kansas City, Missouri — An AI-powered credential management platform that simplifies state-by state licensing and continuing medical education (CME) requirements into clear next best actions. The platform helps healthcare providers and teams stay ahead of renewal deadlines and documentation, so providers can reduce renewal risk and remain ready to practice across states.
• Cyclea (Ananya Sharma), Kansas City, Missouri —  A women’s digital health platform that helps patients and physicians identify longitudinal patterns between menstrual cycles, gastrointestinal symptoms, hormonal changes, and overall health. By translating longitudinal symptom trends into actionable clinical insights, Cyclea aims to support earlier diagnosis, reduce recall bias, and empower more personalized care.
• MedRevRx (Sunti Wathanacharoen), Leawood, Kansas — A healthcare fintech company built around a problem most hospital finance teams know exists but have never had a good way to fix it. When Medicare Advantage plans pay a claim, they often pay less than the contract requires. The claim was not denied; just underpaid. Hospitals lose millions a year to this, and most of it never gets recovered because the audit process is manual, slow and buried under higher-priority work. MedRevRx finds, validates and packages every underpayment into a structured dispute, ready for the hospital’s own team to submit. This gives the finance team a payment accuracy review that sits between when the remittance posts and when the books close.
• Tolair (Chad Brausen), Kansas City, Missouri — A software and data analytics company specializing in large-scale siloed data ingestion and integration with artificial intelligence oversight.
• VOISS (Paul Epp, Amber Rowland), Lawrence, Kansas — Provides a research backed extended reality (XR) platform designed to help youth ages 8-18 develop critical social and communication skills. Developed at the number one-ranked Department of Special Education at the University of Kansas, the solution provides an immersive learning environment with over 140 simulations tailored for students with autism (ASD), social anxiety, and other social skill deficits. The platform includes a student-facing application that is accessible via tablets and VR headsets, and an admin website that enables educators, therapists, and parents to assess skills, assign targeted scenarios, and monitor the progress of the students.

Digital Sandbox KC’s support is an incredible milestone for Cyclea, said CEO Ananya Sharma, a medical student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine.

“This funding allows us to transform clinician and patient feedback into a validated product by accelerating development, expanding beta testing, and refining the platform alongside the people it’s designed to serve,” she said.

Cyclea is a women’s digital health platform that helps patients and physicians identify longitudinal patterns between menstrual cycles, gastrointestinal symptoms, hormonal changes, and overall health. By translating longitudinal symptom trends into actionable clinical insights, Cyclea aims to support earlier diagnosis, reduce recall bias, and empower more personalized care.

“We’re grateful for the opportunity to build technology that helps patients better understand their health while giving clinicians more meaningful longitudinal data to support earlier, more informed care,” Sharma said.