Search Results: fountain city fintech

Big wins up the odds: KC’s standing among Midwest peer cities rises in new M25 ranking

Headline-grabbing success stories and newly boosted state funding for startup support are a powerful combination, said Victor Gutwein, detailing Kansas City’s higher 2022 spot on M25’s annual ranking of Midwest startup cities. Kansas City rose to No. 11 of 59 in the deep dive report — which explores how micro-environments in the Midwest are performing…

Maggie Kenefake, Royal Street Ventures, Clarence Tan, Boddle, and John Thomson, PayIt, during a previous C3KC conference at Union Station

Innovators can’t do it alone; C3KC conference calls for cross-sector attack on wealth gap, KC’s biggest pain points

Editor’s note: Startland News is a media sponsor for the Junior League of Kansas City’s C3KC conference. Click here for tickets to the event, which features a keynote address by best-selling author Adam Grant. Challenges abound in Kansas City, Kimberlee Ried acknowledged, but opportunities for innovation to push change are even more plentiful. An in-person conference…

Parker Graham, Finotta

How Finotta emerged from 2020’s perils with a leap of faith, $3M investment banked

The through line of Parker Graham’s startup journey so far: resiliency. “People like to joke that cockroaches just don’t die,” laughed Graham, reflecting after his fintech company, Finotta — more pheonix rising than cockroach surviving — recently closed a $3 million seed funding round and completely changed the makeup of its team. “I feel like…

Zach Anderson Pettet, Ben Milne, and Jessie Jacob, V-Sum

‘Nerds’ need value: Midwest trio connects global fintech players through virtual summit

Fintech workers and industry innovators are starving for human connection amid a crazy 10 months of COVID and a pandemic’s-worth of dull virtual events, said Zach Anderson Pettet. “All of us nerds in our specific space — being financial services and financial technology — haven’t been able to congregate, so there’s been a lot of…

Donald Hawkins, KC Collective; STARTLAND's Innovation Exchange

Winning pitch: Leading KC fintech founder deposits trio of new bank partnerships 

One of Kansas City’s prominent fintech and nonprofit leaders has secured partnerships with three of the regions leading banks.  Donald Hawkins, founder and CEO of Griffin Technologies and a co-leader in KC Collective, was awarded pilot projects with Emprise Bank, Fidelity Bank, and Intrust Bank, Thursday — part of the Wichita-based NXSTAGE Pilot Competition, hosted…