Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Two KC venture capitalists earn scholarships to join Kauffman Fellows

A pair of Kansas City venture capitalists were recently selected to participate in the highly-esteemed investor program Kauffman Fellows. As part of an Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation program announced in October, Kauffman Fellows awarded scholarships to Stray Dog Capital CEO Lisa Feria and Flyover Capital partner Thad Langford. The program also awarded scholarships to Scott Bernstein, principal…

ScaleUP! KC welcomes 16 new entrepreneurs to the program

On Wednesday ScaleUP! KC welcomed 16 new entrepreneurs into its incubator program’s sixth cohort. To qualify, ScaleUP! companies must be in business for at least two years, generate annual sales of between $150,000 and $750,000 and have the potential to reach to $1 million in sales. Startups from the latest cohort represent industries such as…

Meet Project UK, an accelerator helping entrepreneurs from underserved KC communities

Project UK founder Quest Taylor was ecstatic Tuesday when he received news his accelerator earned funding from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. “It was a stamp of approval for the organization,” Taylor said of the accelerator, which was founded in early 2017. “I was not expecting to receive the grant. We really had to prove…

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation startup growth

Kauffman Foundation dishes $840K to 8 area accelerators

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is hitting the gas on its support of area accelerator programs. As part of the 2016 KC Accelerator Challenge, the Kauffman Foundation announced Tuesday that it’s awarded a total of $840,000 in grants to eight local venture accelerator programs. “Our goal is to increase entrepreneurial success in Kansas City through…

Kauffman Foundation: National startup activity continues to improve

National startup activity grew slightly in 2016, a consecutive three-year improvement that reached pre-Great Recession levels, according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. However, in the long-term view startup activity is still in decline when compared to the 1980s,  the 2017 Kauffman Index of Startup Activity found. Victor Hwang, vice president of entrepreneurship at the…