Funding Stories

Firebrand Ventures partners with UMKC to cultivate entrepreneurs

Firebrand Ventures has partnered with the University of Missouri-Kansas City to help local startup entrepreneurs. As part of the agreement, the Kansas City-based fund will offer graduates of UMKC’s E-Scholars program an opportunity to receive an investment from Firebrand starting in 2017. Housed under UMKC’s Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (RIEI), E-Scholars offers students…

Report: Kansas City’s VC funding rank improves among Midwest cities

Editor’s note: Brian Matthews is a guest author to Startland News and co-founded Cultivation Capital. Opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone. When assessing the vitality of an entrepreneurial ecosystem, an important factor to consider is the Total Venture Funds Raised by the startups within that city or region. This metric provides an…

ECJC offering dozens of entrepreneurial education events in 2017

The Enterprise Center in Johnson County has a jammed packed schedule of over 50 workshops for Kansas City entrepreneurs in 2017. “We are lucky to have the support of dozens of volunteer service providers who take time away from their own jobs and businesses to share their expertise with entrepreneurs,” ECJC vice president of communications…

Funding opportunities for educators, artists, entrepreneurs

Half the of the battle of raising capital is finding the right opportunity. To give you a hand, we’ve gathered some timely opportunities so you don’t have to. Here’s more on funding opportunities with deadlines drawing near: AT&T Aspire Accelerator Application deadline: Feb. 7 Ed-tech ventures are encouraged to apply for the 2017 AT&T Aspire…

Five Elms Capital leads $7.4M round in San Diego firm

Five Elms Capital is the lead investor in a $7.4 million finance round for a San Diego-based security firm. The Kansas City-based investment group is backing Trackforce, a SaaS provider of operations management tools for security guard operators. The company’s GuardTek software suite is used by more than 80,000 users at over 8,000 sites in…