News Stories

Carlanda McKinney, Raaxo

Raaxo takes shape after pivot from Aphrodite Bra Co’s body scan concept

Despite its use of body-mapping technology, Aphrodite Bra Company wasn’t the right fit for customers’ needs, said Carlanda McKinney, founder of the newly rebooted custom intimates company Raaxo. “Aphrodite had been stuck in the starting-up space,” she said. “We’d never really gotten enough sales or enough traction to say, ‘We’re launched,’ or, ‘We’re in business.’…

Ben Rao, Bridge Space, Lee's Summit

Serial entrepreneur leverages past success for Bridge Space coworking project

Bridge Space will be more than a coworking office, Ben Rao said. He hopes it will be the heart of Lee’s Summit’s blossoming entrepreneurial ecosystem. “My No. 1 goal is to accelerate entrepreneurs’ success,” said Rao, Bridge Space founder and a serial entrepreneur himself. “It’s an opportunity for me to build something that would make…

Keliah Smith

KC mom’s humble entrepreneurial journey draws on healing power of creativity

Huddled in her parents’ basement, between the cribs of her crying twin babies, Keliah Smith began to draw. She was unemployed and feeling emotionally drained. The relationship with her children’s father had soured. Her escape: the stylus and smartphone in her hands. The Kansas City mother drew what she didn’t see in the mirror, she…

Harvard University recognizes KCMO digital inclusion map

Kansas City’s geographic work to illustrate the area’s digital divide earned high praise from a prestigious university. Harvard University recently highlighted the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s Digital Inclusion map, a tool that — at a block-by-block scale — detail residents’ access to internet connectivity overlaid with poverty levels. “This visualization was chosen as Harvard’s…

Darcy Howe, American angel

Study: Women angel investors more likely to give back to female-led startups

Women support women, a new study of 13,000 North American angel investors says. As more female entrepreneurs have entered the business field in the past few decades, women have begun to reshape the nature of angel investing, according to a report by the Overland Park-based Angel Capital Association. “Being an entrepreneur is one of the…