Startups Stories

Chris Olsen, Drive Capital, KC Tech Council CEO Retreat

Elite investors at exclusive CEO retreat: Don’t waste time; sell us on your billion-dollar idea

Trying to land the backing of a venture capital firm? Throw your pitch deck out the window, Chris Olsen advised a select group of Kansas City CEOs. “A lot of times founders will come and give us their pitch and they’ll start going through it and [they’re telling us] they’re profitable in 18-months. And we’ll…

Hyped from high school: Blue Valley teens among startup cash winners at K-State challenge

Four Overland Park high school students have landed cash infusions totaling more than $7,000 for their ongoing startup ventures. Local winners of the Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge — supported by Network KS, sponsored by the Kansas Masonic Foundation, and hosted by Kansas State University — included: Drone Estate founders Austin Jones and Hunter Vasquez, Blue Valley West…

TrueAccord Kansas City

‘More is better’ TrueAccord CEO says as Silicon Valley startup plans for 150 KC jobs

TrueAccord is “furiously hiring” to jumpstart the San Francisco-based startup’s intense expansion plan now supplemented by a growing Lenexa office, said Ohad Samet. “We’ve been very successful [in Silicon Valley], but at some point we realized that we really needed to blow up,” said Samet, co-founder and CEO of the debt recovery startup, which recently…

Blade & Timber at Power & Light

Blade & Timber opening new axe-throwing experience at Power & Light in late summer

Blade & Timber hopes to stick its cutting-edge axe-throwing concept in the bullseye of Kansas City entertainment, opening a new 11-lane facility in the Power & Light District by the end of the summer. “We are excited to continue growing our brand nationally, while staying true to our roots,” said Ryan Henrich, co-founder of Blade…

Mobility Designed boosted by $1.7M in funding, planning new product launch this summer

Editor’s note: This article is sponsored by the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Regnier Institute, but was independently produced on behalf of Startland News. Pressure to succeed has only increased since Kansas City-based Mobility Designed found its footing as the first new design for crutches since the Civil War, said co-founders Max and Liliana Younger. What…