News Stories

Nolan McMichael, Brad Starnes, and Joe Allen, Splitsy

Splitsy takes top prize in Regnier challenge, adding to emerging fintech startup’s spring bump

The Regnier Venture Creation Challenge doled out more than $65,000 in cash prizes to emerging startups this spring, culminating in Friday’s big win for an up-and-coming fintech app.  “We had a great competition,” Bryan Boots, managing director of venture creation and assistant teaching professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, told Startland News.  The annual…

Missouri Chamber

Missouri House advances pro-entrepreneur bill that would lower taxes on self-starters

A vision to make Missouri more entrepreneur-friendly moved closer to reality Monday as state legislators passed a first-in-the-nation Right To Start Act, advancing the bill to the Senate on an 85-69 vote. “We made progress today to make Missouri a state that welcomes risk takers, the crazy ones, who want to build the next generation…

John Blake, CFO, and Luke Anear, CEO, SafetyCulture

SafetyCulture rides deeper into unicorn club with $73M round, reaching $1.6B valuation

The evolution from a checklist app into an operations platform for working teams is paying off for SafetyCulture, which Monday announced a massive funding round from the East Coast — pushing the unicorn company even deeper into the realm of startups valued at more than a billion dollars. Led by New York-based Insight Partners, the…

Penn 1 at The District in Lenexa City Center

Made in KC goes West: Why the local-first retailer is opening a marketplace (with shuffleboard) in Lenexa

A newly announced Made in KC Marketplace at Lenexa City Center will make local goods — and the makers behind them — more accessible to a fast-developing piece of Kansas City, said Keith Bradley. “Part of our mission as a company is to make shopping local a habit,” said Bradley, co-owner of Made in KC, a…

Daniel Smith and Charon Thompson, Black Drip Coffee, The Porter House KC

Coffee for the culture: Porter House KC founders partner with Messenger to craft Black-owned coffee brand

Black Drip Coffee brewed from within a desire to bring coffee culture to historically disenfranchised and underserved communities, said Charon Thompson and Daniel Smith.  “It’s more than coffee,” noted Smith, who co-founded the brand, Black Drip Coffee, as well as the Porter House KC with Thompson. “We always talk about breaking down barriers and creating…