Oklahoma City and Oklahoma

Virtually every community in the Silicon Prairie advertises that it is in the middle of the country, and thus it is a good location for transportation, logistics, and warehousing. It should come as no surprise then, that many regional communities have a significant employment level in transportation and warehousing. According to the United States Cluster…
Read MoreThe Startup Champions Network, a national organization of entrepreneurial ecosystem builders with a strong Silicon Prairie presence, announced on October 29 that it received a planning grant from the Kansas City, Missouri-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. An entrepreneurial ecosystem builder is a person who helps facilitate the multi-faceted creation and improvement of the components of…
Read MoreOklahoma City’s ecosystem had a rough week from the outside looking in. Silicon Prairie News ran a story where the community underperformed its expected venture investment. The Brookings Institute and Walton Family Foundation produced an article suggesting that the community was having waning investment. But frankly, this is pretty misleading. OKC is going through a…
Read MoreFollowing the publication of our article on Tuesday regarding expected values in cities, Silicon Prairie News received multiple requests for more information. There were three primary questions regarding the data. The first question is where and how did you get this information. Silicon Prairie News and its partner organizations use Pitchbook and FormDs.com to identify…
Read MoreLincoln Startup Week is taking place this week in Lincoln, Nebraska, including visits and contributions from Paul Singh of Results Junkies. Singh has made over 2000 investments and is a nationally recognized speaker on investing, early-stage companies, and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Singh’s basic approach is to travel around the country and speak in places that are…
Read MoreIn 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…
Read MoreWhiteboard Technologies recently announced that it has completed a raise of $2.5 million, led by i2e, an Oklahoma based venture entity. Whiteboard Technologies, creator of Whiteboard Mortgage CRM, provides customer relationship management (CRM) software for mortgage professionals – with a focus on keeping everyone in the loop during the mortgage underwriting process. The company has…
Read MoreKansas City-based nbkc bank announced last week the six companies that comprise the first class of their fintech accelerator program Fountain City Fintech. Fountain City Fintech is the first accelerator program run by a community bank that specifically focuses on partnerships with innovative startups looking to solve real-world problems and pain points. For example, addressing…
Read MoreLast month’s Inside/Outside Innovation Summit in Lincoln encouraged collisions, collaborations, and discussions between startups, corporations and communities. It was also a chance for one startup to win $120,000 from Nelnet, Allo Communications, Spreetail, Assurity, and Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development in the Startup Investment Pitch Competition. Taylor Stevenson’s winning pitch for Wichita-based Alyss Analytics took…
Read MoreStillwater, Oklahoma kicked off the 2018 North American Tech Tour with the Entrepreneurship Unconference, a 3-day event for entrepreneurs, innovators and investors. The Stillwater Entrepreneurship Unconference was the launching point of the 2018 North American Tech Tour, a program of D.C.-based angel investor, Paul Singh and the Results Junkies. Session topics included angel investing, strategies…
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