News Stories

Bird ridership soars during NFL Draft amid exclusive e-scooter partnership with KCMO

Daily rides in Kansas City increased by 724 percent during April’s NFL Draft weekend, Bird reported, following the three-day series of events that brought more than 300,000 fans to festival grounds at Union Station. “We’re thrilled to have partnered with Kansas City and the NFL to support the 2023 NFL Draft by providing efficient, affordable,…

First he got the park clean, then his brother; New theater explores how Chris Harris played through the hazards

Five years after opening a golf course in the Ivanhoe neighborhood to help revitalize his community from within, Chris Harris is taking a swing at the east side’s theater desert. Harris — the owner and operator of Harris Park Midtown Sports and Activity Center and lifelong neighborhood resident — has now built an indoor theater…

Donald Hawkins, KC Collective; STARTLAND's Innovation Exchange

Former KC startup acquired by Atlanta-based banking platform, uniting two of the largest Black-owned fintechs

ATLANTA — Greenwood, a digital banking platform for Black and Latino individuals and businesses, announced this week its acquisition of Kansas City-founded Kinly — a neobank building generational wealth for Black America. The deal will help grow Atlanta-based Greenwood’s ecosystem of more than 1 million members and provide Kinly’s community of more than 300,000 with…

Industrial coworking space eyes downtown KC; plans mixed office, warehouse amenities

A Northwest Arkansas-based startup plans to bring a new coworking concept to Kansas City this year — one that combines flexible office and shared warehouse solutions, said CEO Brendan Howell. “We call it industrial coworking,” explained Howell, co-founder and CEO of Loloft . “That’s a term that we’ve coined.” The company is aiming for a…

‘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…