Startups Stories

Chris Costello, blooom

It’s ‘Teacher Appreciation Year’ as blooom launches 12 months of free services for educators

After an especially difficult year for teachers — navigating safety protocols and virtual classrooms, among other pandemic challenges — a Kansas City startup plans to offer its finance and retirement services free to educators for 12 months and at any price level, said Chris Costello. “Many [traditional] plans are needlessly expensive and complicated, which is why…

Heather Decker and A.J. Mellott, Ronawk

Voting now open: Startup’s stem cell scaling solution vies for ‘Coolest Thing Made in Kansas’

An Olathe biotech lab is once again growing “Coolest Thing Made in Kansas” honors with its breakthrough technology to help researchers produce stem cells at a massive scale to help fight pandemics and global diseases. T-Blocks were announced Tuesday as one of the Top 32 contenders in the Kansas Chamber’s annual Kansas-made tournament, which highlights…

Jeremy Elias, TrackMy Solutions

KC startup releases ‘eVaccine passport’ with state registry verification, alerts for booster shots

Employers and event organizers hoping to promote safety amid the flourishing Delta variant and the threat of fraudulent CDC vaccine cards have a new tool, said Jeremy Elias, announcing a Kansas City-built solution to track and confirm individuals’ COVID-19 vaccine statuses. TrackMy Verivax empowers businesses to capture data, track compliance, report on vaccine administration and…

Quest Moffat, Kadogo

Serial tech entrepreneur, ecosystem builder develops app to help turn everyday purchases into charitable donations

Editor’s note: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a financial supporter of Startland News. This story was produced independently by Startland News’s nonprofit newsroom. Operating a nonprofit taught Quest Moffat that it’s easier to raise programming dollars than it is to raise operating dollars — and a lack of the latter brings unexpected stressors, he…

Jeff Kostos, Spear Power Systems

Grandview-based battery innovator — Evergy Ventures’ first investment — exiting to global power player

A Kansas City-area startup developing next-generation scalable lithium-ion battery storage systems for land, sea and air is being acquired by a global power management leader, the companies announced Monday. Financial terms of the transaction — through which Grandview-based Spear Power Systems will add its power and talent to Sensata Technologies — were not disclosed. The…