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Greenfield Robotics innovates in ag with chemical-free weed control
Clint Brauer grew up farming with his dad in Kansas. He did not enjoy farming at all and after graduating from K-State, made his way to Los Angeles to work. After spending 13 years in tech, Clint set out to bring the Wichita area an organic alternative, with the thought that his tech background might…
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8QS With a Silicon Prairie Founder: Maggie Schoonover
Maggie Schoonover calls herself “an introverted science nerd.” We call her an inspiring Silicon Prairie Founder, and we’re pleased she chose to share her co-founding story with SPN and our readers. Here’s what she had to say…. My educational background is heavily focused in the sciences – I earned a B.S. in Meteorology from…
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Lawn Buddy revolutionizing lawncare
Sometimes the grass is greener, and other times, it’s overgrown. Wichita-based Lawn Buddy can help with the latter. Steven Werner grew up on a small ranch in Wyoming, enlisted in the Marine Corp as a junior in high school, toured in Afghanistan, and found his way back to Wyoming in 2013. Throughout his military career,…
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Nitride Solutions – producing material in Wichita for the world
Wichita-based Nitride Solutions is a manufacturer of materials used in electronics. Sounds simple, but it’s much more complex. Founder Jeremy Jones explained that Nitride Solutions essentially grows crystals, in specially designed reactors at very high temperatures (4000 °F) to produce a material called aluminum nitride. The resulting material is used for applications in electronics, refrigeration,…
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SPN Community Survey: Wichita survey report
The Wichita community answered the call and completed more SPN community surveys than any other city. We think that is fantastic and to show our gratitude we wanted to share the love. The following report is the compilation and tidbits of information that the citizens of Wichita were so gracious to share about their ecosystem.…
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Rural Kansas company raises $6.5 million in venture funding
Green Dot Bioplastics closed a $6.5 million Series A financing deal led by Fulcrum Global Capital on February 7, with participation from iiM (Innovations in Motion) and Open Prairie Ventures through its Open Prairie Rural Opportunities Fund. The company will use the investment to accelerate organic growth, develop and commercialize new bioplastics products and uses,…
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SPN special report: the 2018 State of the Silicon Prairie
We are proud to announce the next edition of our State of the Silicon Prairie Report. In 2018’s report, we ranked 42 Midwestern startup communities on a variety of factors in order to measure where we are individually so that we might progress as a united region. As part of the AIM Institute, an innovative…
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Wichita Based KNOXX Building a Soft Skill AI Engine for Human Resources
KNOXX, LLC a Wichita based technology company has filed a Form D regarding a new financing round. The company, which raised $300,000 in 2017 to validate the company’s prototype product, is using the new round to take the customer discovery from the prototype phase to build a better Alyss. Alyss is the company’s proprietary video…
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Why Silicon Prairie News is making noise about acquisitions
The Silicon Prairie startup ecosystem needs to do a better job of promoting itself and acknowledging success when it happens. Silicon Prairie News exists to be a voice that promotes startups and makes people aware of exciting news. Over the last decade, we have missed more stories than we have covered. But we’re not alone…
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Why Silicon Prairie communities need to be thinking about where they should be, not just where others are
In doing the research for the Silicon Prairie Annual Report, slated for a November release, Chapman and Company noticed an interesting trend when comparing venture activity (as identified in Pitchbook) in the Midwest. As can be seen in the below graph (which includes Midwest communities that received venture investment in 2017), the order of investment…