Funding Stories

Harris Park

Social entrepreneur’s Harris Park brings green and golf to blighted urban neighborhood

A clean green park with an award-winning golf course not only raises the profile of the Ivanhoe neighborhood at 40th and Wayne — it changes the mindset of those who live there, said Chris Harris. The space — completed in August— was chosen by the American Society of Golf Course Architects for its Design Excellence…

Mark Davis, RealQuantum, at LaunchKC

Curb appeal attracts investors to $850K round for real estate tech firm RealQuantum

A year of steady growth will help Kansas City real estate tech firm RealQuantum end 2018 with the close of its first round of seed funding — securing $850,000 in investments, revealed Mark Davis. “We closed a couple of times actually — people just kept showing up at the last minute wanting in,” Davis, RealQuantum’s…

AY Young, Battery Tour, sunshine boxes

Battery Tour energizes Sunshine Boxes with global vision to power developing economies through music

AY Young’s recent Battery Tour generated enough money to send two of 17° 73° Innovation Co’s Sunshine Boxes to Haiti — the first step in a partnership between the two ventures with common goals, the energetic founder said. “[We] just realized that we were trying to kind of do the same thing as far as…

Adrienne Haynes, SEED Law

Opening KC to black entrepreneurs begins with teaching startup lingo, tearing down walls

Most entrepreneurs operate within silos, said Adrienne Haynes, noting that black-run startups face particular — though not insurmountable — challenges becoming embedded in the Kansas City startup scene. Seemingly approachable community events and coworking spaces aren’t always as open as organizers think, added Quest Moffat, founder of Project United Knowledge, joining Haynes and Donald Hawkins,…

Matthew Condon, Bardavon, Clete Brewer, NewRoad Capital Partners, and Paul Morris, Bardavon

Bardavon bid to revolutionize workers’ compensation just got a $15 million boost

Timing is everything, said Matt Condon, announcing this week $15 million in new financing to help scale his Overland Park-based company’s reach into markets from coast to coast. “Our national expansion is coming at a time when employers across the country are recognizing that they must play a lead role in the transformation of health…