Kansas City
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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It was a strong week for Minnesota. Between Total Expert and ShiraTronics, Minnesota based companies brought in more than $85 million in Venture Funding. There was a little more diversity than in previous weeks with companies in Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, and Wisconsin also raising substantial funds. These fundings are aggregate lists created from Crunchbase, SEC…
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Chicago had another strong week. Overall the Silicon Prairie more than one hundred million in fundings this month, including some large rounds in Chicago and in biotechnology. Large Rounds (10m+) Apervita – Chicago – $22.56 million – Apervita is a healthcare technology company that provides health insights using machine learning and artificial intelligence. The company…
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In early October, ZAF Energy Systems of Joplin, Missouri announced an agreement to deploy their next generation nickel-zinc (NiZn) battery system in a United States Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missile ground facility. This was a significant achievement. However, it was just the beginning of a big month for ZAF. This week, the company announced a…
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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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Spear Power Systems filed paperwork with the SEC and announced that it had raised a round of outside capital this week. In its Form D filing, the company identified that it had raised more than $14.5 million dollars in an external financing round. Spear Power Systems designs and manufactures lithium ion battery storage systems for…
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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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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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On Thursday, Kansas City based Replica announced via blog post that it had moved from a product of Sidewalk Labs (in the Model Lab) to a separate company, called Replica. The company also announced that it had raised $11 million in venture funding. In the blog post, Nick Bowden, Replica’s CEO and co-founder explained how…
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