Startups Stories

Sprint Accelerator Demo Day preview (part I)

The second class of the Sprint Mobile Health Accelerator is gearing up for its much-anticipated Demo Day, which serves as a culminating event and is expected to draw a crowd of nearly 2,000 people. Led by Boulder-based Techstars, the Kansas City-based accelerator is now hosting 10 mobile health tech startups from around the world for…

Mayor Sly James helps startup 1 Minute Candidate build, win competition

Kansas City Mayor Sly James stepped up this Sunday to help a team of entrepreneurs win a competition in which they built a business in 54 hours. James, a well-known cheerleader of Kansas City’s startup community, helped political-tech startup 1 Minute Candidate launch its platform at Startup Weekend Kansas City, a event in which entrepreneurial-hopefuls…

Local weight lifting tech firm Rack Performance lands $250K

A Lenexa-based tech company is racking up investment capital to further develop its weight room management software. Rack Performance recently raised $250,000 from local, private investors that will help the company advance the second version of its software. Rack Performance built a web-based, weight room and group fitness platform to help coaches and trainers efficiently…

FitBark wags its way into nationwide retailer

  Animal tech company FitBark is now selling its dog activity-tracking device in Target stores nationwide. The deal will place its product in front of millions of consumers each year at Target’s nearly 1,800 U.S. locations. FitBark’s animal tracking device will be featured among Target’s new “Connected-Life” section, which features other Internet-enabled products such as wireless…

Kansas City startup ‘walks the talk,’ bungee jumps

Sara Davidson doesn’t lightly espouse a message of fearlessness in business. And that’s why Davidson, the founder of Hello Fearless, is live broadcasting her jump off a cable car in Switzerland. Davidson is hoping to inspire other women around the world to conquer their fears not only with a live-streamed bungee jump — out of a…