News Stories

How a car crash after football practice flipped this top recruit from student athlete to founder

“If I’m going to go through something that traumatic, something good should come out of it,” said Zaydan Ahmed, a Pembroke Hill graduate who built a wearable stress management device after an epileptic seizure caused his car crash.

Work is a Joke: Toss the business cards and grab a mic; new comedy show says your job ain’t that serious

Comedy can be a more powerful connection tool than networking, said Jessie Jacob, emphasizing the contrast between a well-placed joke when meeting another professional and a standard question like “So what do you do?”

Just funded: Four KC groups split $41K in first awards from KCSourceLink initiative

A regional effort launched by KCSourceLink has funded its first cohort of organizations that are tackling gaps in Kansas City’s entrepreneur ecosystem — prioritizing collaborations that remove barriers to business growth for founders typically underrepresented within resource allocations.

Kemper Family backs Endeavor as global entrepreneur network deepens its Heartland ties

A Kansas City banking executive is joining the board of Endeavor Heartland through a collaboration that sees UMB Bank and the Kemper Family Foundation investing in Endeavor’s mission to scale entrepreneur-led innovation and economic growth from within the region.

Capital flows from relationships; this VC wants investors building them, not mining spreadsheets

Unlike the growing wave of AI startups promising to transform investing itself, one Midwest-built software platform launched by an industry insider focuses on a much narrower problem for VCs: organizing the steady stream of quarterly updates, financial metrics, documents and communications that arrive from portfolio companies.