LaunchKC – Kansas City’s annual grant competition for up-and-coming companies – has just announced the names of the 20 finalists that’ll be vying for $500,000 during the Techweek Kansas City festival.
Nine winners will be named on Sept. 15. One will take home $100,000, while eight others will each receive a $50,000 grant.
Most of this year’s contenders are from the Kansas City metro, with a few others from Iowa, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and Ukraine. About 400 startups applied for this third round of LaunchKC.
In addition to the grant money, the winners will be given a year’s worth of free office space, mentoring and other resources.
“It has been another strong year for applications to LaunchKC,” said Drew Solomon, senior vice president of business development at the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City, Missouri, and competition chairman for LaunchKC.
This year’s finalists include:
- Aware Vehicles: Kansas City, Missouri
- backstitch: Kansas City, Missouri
- Blue Point 2: Leawood, Kansas
- Cambrian Tech: Leawood, Kansas
- H3 Enterprises: Kansas City, Missouri
- HerdDogg: Longmont, Colorado
- Hidden Abilities: Lawrence, Kansas
- iShare Medical: Kansas City, Missouri
- MenuHunt: St. Joseph, Missouri
- Miles: Overland Park, Kansas
- Music Spoke: Kansas City, Kansas
- Play-it Health: Kansas City, Kansas
- Redivus Health: Olathe, Kansas
- Sickweather: Kansas City, Missouri
- Smart Bridge Health: Washington, D.C.
- SwineTech: New Sharon, Iowa
- TradeLanes: Kansas City, Missouri
- UniExo: Ukraine
- Vytal: McPherson, Kansas
- Zitches: Kansas City, Missouri
The EDC and the Downtown Council of Kansas City are the organizers of LaunchKC, but the program has received support from the city’s biggest companies and state and local government.
“LaunchKC has attracted nearly 1,500 applications from throughout the nation and the world during our first three years of competition,” said Mike Hurd, marketing officer for LaunchKC and the Downtown Council. “When we award the next $500,000 at Techweek, we will have reached $1.5 million mark in awards in just three years.”
