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KinoSol plans to launch Kickstarter to bring its revolutionary dehydrator to Western markets
Ames startup KinoSol is planning to launch a Kickstarter later this month to fund production of solar-powered dehydrators aimed at Western markets. KinoSol was founded in 2014 by Clayton Mooney, Elise Kendall, Mikayla Sullivan and Ella Gehrke when the quartet was attending Iowa State University. They came up with KinoSol while participating in the Thought…
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Why Silicon Valley startup Monolith expanded to Lincoln, Nebraska
Monolith Materials, a Silicon Valley industrial tech startup, announced plans about a year ago to build a carbon black manufacturing plant near Lincoln. This week the company upped the ante by stating its intent to locate its manufacturing headquarters in Lincoln. “We’re taking it a step further,” said co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer Rob Hanson…
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Swizzle turns online text into business intelligence
A few years ago Nick Szabo found himself in Korea after his wife was offered a job. He thought he would take a year off, but soon found himself in the fast-paced startup world of Asia. In 2014 the team of seven behind St. Louis-based Swizzle started working on a company called Idea Above, which had a…
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Ace Blooms wants to grow the flower market for men
If you’ve ever bought flowers online, you’ve flipped through dozens of bouquets trying to decide which one says “You’re a pretty awesome grandma.” But what many buyers don’t realize is that when you send flowers, the order is being fulfilled by a florist near grandma’s house. If that’s in small town Nebraska, they might not have…
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Ben Vu is back! A look inside the development of Places VR
Between 2009 and 2014, SkyVu Entertainment and its Battle Bears games became a sign of Omaha’s inevitable rise to national prominence. In 2009 Ben Vu, the founder of SkyVu Entertainment, launched their first game Battle Bears. Within a year they had 6 million downloads. In two years, 12 million. Battle Bears games–of which there were many–regularly topped…
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Beehive Industries solves infrastructure headaches for local governments
The asset management platform meets the growing demand for better municipal software. Local governments often struggle to manage and keep track of infrastructure and assets like power lines and heavy equipment because of outdated processes and legacy systems. Lincoln startup Beehive Industries is changing that. “Frankly, the thing we run into most is that an organization’s things…
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AMP’d Cycles wants to give bicycles the same safety features as cars
Bicycles are subject to many of the same rules of the road as cars but without the same protections. You can upgrade a bike with lights and mirrors, but many cars come equipped with things like backup cameras and collision avoidance systems. In 2013 there were an estimated 494,000 emergency department visits due to bicycle-related…
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After Techstars Mobility, Drive Spotter finds its place in the self-driving revolution
The transportation startup returned from Techstars Mobility with a fresh vision of their future. In June Drive Spotter announced their acceptance into the 2016 class at Techstars Mobility in Detroit, Michigan. The announcement followed the news earlier this year that they had raised $750,000 in their seed round, led by by Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance. Founded in 2015 by…
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AMPT gamifies employee recognition
Every company talks about company culture and employee engagement. But walking the talk is not easy. “Ice cream socials aren’t cutting it anymore,” said Collin Caneva, founder of Lincoln startup AMPT. “It’s what we hear time and again. People want to be recognized for moments of greatness.” AMPT is a real-time, social recognition platform designed…
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Isadore Ag brings the power of data to seed corn drying
Drying seed corn is labor intensive and time consuming. Many farmers sleep in their truck to monitor the highly-sensitive process. Sioux City based Isadore Ag is a seed dryer management system designed and manufactured by Dan Elliott and Russell Valentine. For most farmers corn dryers are a basically a black box, according to Elliott, and many…