LaunchKC announces 20 finalists for $50K grants

After trying deliberations that went into Monday evening, the Kansas City-based grants competition LaunchKC has revealed its 20 finalists that will vie for a piece of the $500,000 pie.



The competition — which will distribute $500,000 via 10, $50,000 non-dilutive grants — drew more than 400 tech startup applicants for the second year in a row.

A panel of judges combed through the applications to find the top 20 applicants, which serve an array of industries, including health, agriculture, education, mobile and more. LaunchKC reported that the finalists include 11 from the metro area, seven other states and two international startups from Austria and Portugal.

“It was a very difficult field for the judges to select from. It’s a very competitive landscape both in Kansas City and around the rest of the country and world,” said Drew Solomon, vice president of business and job development at the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City. “We saw a large uptick in the agriculture and health spaces from a technology perspective. Also, there are 40 to 50 companies who absolutely could have been a finalist. It really is humbling to try and make these decisions. I wish we could fund 50 of them with a grant.”



The firms listed below will pitch their firms on Sept. 16 during a presentation at Techweek KC. Judges will then announce 10 winners later that day during a live celebration to conclude the conference. The grant competition is led by the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City and the Downtown Council of Kansas City.



Here are the finalists:



Aces Health (Bentonville, Ark.) – Health Tech

ConsultUS (Prairie Village, Kan.) – Ag Tech

Backstitch – (Detroit, Mich./Kansas City, Mo./Sprint Accelerator) – Cloud Services

Big Bang – (Kansas City, Mo.) – Cloud Services

BLITAB – (Austria) – Education Tech

EnduraLock – (Overland Park, Kan.) – Other

Eyes on Freight – (Kansas City, Mo.) – Logistics

Glober – (San Francisco, Calif.) – Mobile Tech

Fitness Technology – (Kansas City, Mo.) – Health Tech

Forest Devices – Alpha Stroke (Pittsburgh, Pa.) – Health Tech

Herd Scout – (Overland Park, Kan.) – Ag Tech

iShare Medical Records – (Kansas City, Mo.) – Health Tech

Magnomics – (Portugal) – Ag Tech

MailControl – (Chicago, Ill.) – Cloud Services

Mobility Designed – (Prairie Village, Kan.) – Other

Mycroft AI – (Lawrence, Kan./Sprint Accelerator) – Artificial Intelligence

NeuroCognetix – (Columbus, Ohio) – Health Tech

Ombitron – (Seattle, Wash.) – Internet of Things

PerfectCube – (Lenexa, Kan.) – Data Analytics

Super Dispatch – (Kansas City, Kan./Sprint Accelerator) – Mobile Tech

Winners of the 2015 LaunchKC grants were: Blooom, Integrated Roadways, KC Drone Company, Nodal Security, Health ID, PopBookings, Pycno, SquareOffs, Vertisense and VideoFizz.

To learn more about LaunchKC or to apply for a LaunchKC grant, click here.

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