Des Moines, Ames and Greater Iowa
Last summer, the Aksarben Foundation approached Chapman and Company about creating a landscape analysis on talent for Nebraska. While this analysis is about Nebraska, there are many lessons for communities throughout the Silicon Prairie region. Here are some broad stroke lessons from the report: The United States is WAY behind on technology talent. This is…
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In honor of the IO Summit, which was born out of the IO Podcast, Silicon Prairie News has compiled a list of some of our favorite podcasts from the Silicon Prairie: The Inside Outside Podcast – http://insideoutside.io/ – With over 168 episodes bringing together entrepreneurship and corporate innovation, this podcast is a regional leader in…
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The funding round up is an aggregation of a variety of sources, including Pitchbook, Form Ds, and Crunchbase. After building a list from these sources, we look for press releases and other mechanisms to provide more information. If you are would like to appear in the funding round up next week, please email us at…
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Last week, Dusty Davidson visited TechBrew in Council Bluffs, Iowa. We were in attendance and taped some of what he had to say. In particular, we thought that his response to a question about growing up in the Midwest was poignant. So, we thought that we would share it with you.
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In August of 2016, John Fein started the process of raising a venture capital fund in Kansas City. He had a target of $7 million as his fund size and as he describes – “zero connections” to the high net worth community in Kansas City. However, he had a mission to raise and invest the…
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Last week, Kingland Systems which has offices in Clear Lake and Ames filed paperwork with the SEC that it had received $1 million in angel capital. September 2019’s $1 million is in addition to the $1.5 million that was raised in 2018. Kingland Systems was founded in 1992 by David Kingland. The company provides a…
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2018 was a terrific year for the Silicon Prairie regarding venture dollars deployed. More than $6.1B was deployed in the region. While the number of companies receiving funds was about 8% lower (approximately 1450 companies were venture backed in the region), the amount of funding was up more than 34.5% from 2017 to 2018. Thus,…
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Ames, Iowa based Gross-Wen Technologies (“GWT”) filed paperwork with the SEC on Tuesday that it had raised an additional $1.25 million dollars. The company which provides revolving algal biofilm system (“RAB”) to cost-effectively recover nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater. GWT primarily serves customers (usually cities) that own wastewater treatment plants, and many…
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More than 200 Iowa State University student and alumni entrepreneurs representing 168 business ventures gathered to pitch their products and services as part of Iowa State University’s exhibit in the Varied Industries Building at the Iowa State Fair. The event took place from August 8-18. Each pitch contestant competed for $1,000 to $5000 awards in the “Great Iowa State University STANDING innOVATION…
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The Innova Ag Innovation Fund IV has invested in five of the Silicon Prairie’s leading startups. However, its origin suggests just how unlikely this was. In 2007, Innova Memphis was founded by Ken Woody as part of the Memphis BioWorks Foundation. This foundation was part of an effort in Memphis, Tennessee to jumpstart the region’s…
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