Prairie Moves is a roundup of career changes, media coverage, product development and other updates from the companies and individuals regularly covered by Silicon Prairie News. To submit an item for consideration, please email editor@siliconprairienews.com or use the form below.
Lead Read
“Why My Colleagues In Congress Shouldn’t Wait On Immigration Reform” – In the midst of a presidential election, U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas authored a guest post on TechCrunch to talk up the goals of the Startup Act 2.0, a bill he co-sponsored in May.
Quotable
“Hey Bryan, it’s Paul. We loved you guys, we’d like to fund you.” – Y Combinator’s Paul Graham, quoted in a post by Bryan Helmig of Zapier that told the story of how his startup earned a spot in the competitive accelerator. – Zapier blog
Fundings
- Zapier, a platform for syncing data between web applications, raised a $1.2 million seed round featuring Bessemer Venture Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvesten – TechCrunch, SPN and Wired
- InvenQuery, a startup that provides technology to help retailers of unique merchandise handle inventory, point-of-sale and e-commerce, raised a $650,000 in Series A round from Dundee Venture Capital – Press Release and SPN
New Tech
- University of Iowa students Hung Viet Tran and Thomas Hornbeck launched Tutor Universe, “the world’s online tutoring marketplace” – tutoruniverse.com and Des Moines Register
Product & Business Updates
- WebFilings introduced a solution for private company reporting – WebFilings blog
- Funeral Innovations partnered with Tukios for an integrated memorial video solution – Funeral Innovations blog
- Hurrdat and Social Assurance launched “Social Media for Finance” – advisors.hurrdat.com
Mentions
- EliteForm – “Kansas Athletics Installs Revolutionary Strength Training System” – Kansas Athletics
- Shaul Jolles – “Cultivating an entrepreneurial playground” – Perspectives
Blogged
- 3 Dudes from Missouri Built a Product, Found Paying Customers, and Got Into YC – Zapier
- Zapier, 100 Connected Services, a Year in Review – Zapier
- Why My Colleagues In Congress Shouldn’t Wait On Immigration Reform – Sen. Jerry Moran
- Put your Meetup pants on. Nov 30th. – Dwolla
- Joining the fight with the United Way #sandyfund – Dwolla
- Who’s Who in Columbia’s Startup Scene – Cultivation Capital
- The Hunt for Developers: Shaking the Ivory Towers – Volano Solutions
- I don’t want to “Hack” the Y Combinator application. – Seedlauncher
- Rise of the Civic Startup – Stephen Hardy
- Practically Friday: A Good Night’s (or Day’s) Rest – Growthology
- Reddit Selects Raikes School for Visit – Raikes School of Computer Science and Management
Misc.
- StartupCity Des Moines announced it’ll offer a boot camp for Startup Weekend Des Moines competitors – StartupCity Des Moines blog and Des Moines Register
- Kansas City IT Professionals announced Ramsey Mohsen as its upcoming Compute Midwest event emcee – KCITP
- TEDxOmaha released video from its latest event – tedxomaha.com
- Master Advisors, four startup service providers whom share an office space, set up shop in The Mastercraft building – Nebraska Entrepreneur
- “Why baby boomers take the entrepreneurship plunge (video)” – Kansas City Business Journal
Credits: Screenshot from techcrunch.com.
