Kansas City Archives - Page 3 of 3

Kansas City Startup: Cognovant Raises $500k For mPHR Pocket Health

A Kansas City startup called Cognovant launches last summer and has been working on a new, easy to use mPHR (mobile personal health record) application. Their application, called PocketHealth, is actually a suite of applications and is cross platform. The company has been saying for months that they will be launching on iOS and Android this month.

With the news that they just raised a $500,000 seed round, they should be that much closer to reaching their deadline.

Cognovant’s PocketHealth, will be free for individual users to download and use. The app captures data and allows users to manage their wellness. It’s built under the stringent medical industry standards. Cognovant has said that the application is based on international data standards and has the same foundation as a full electronic medical record.

Cognovant CEO, Dr. Joe Ketcherside, confirmed to SiliconPrairie today that they are still on track for a launch in about two weeks after final testing is complete.

Beyond the base, free app, users will be able to download a multi-user “family” version which will give users the ability to manage multiple health records. They will also have an upgrade called PocketHealth PHR which will allow users to manage more complex health issues.

More after the break
Read More…

Kansas City Startup: Zippido Achieve Your Goals And Tasks With The Help Of Your Social Network

Most people, whether they want to admit it or not, find that achieving goals or getting tasks completed is easier with a buddy, friend or family member either cheering them on, rooting for them or actually helping out. Think about the last time you told your wife before you went to bed “hey honey remind me to call the care dealer tomorrow” or any other “reminder”. It’s this simple notion which led to the creation of Zippido.

Zippido founder, Ray Haynes describes Zippido to Nibletz.com as “ZippiDo! is a platform that brings the energy of your social network into your goals and tasks. Users of ZippiDo! can easily find, create and track goals – while sharing and discussing them with their friends.”

So think about something like organizing the community yard sale. If you’ve ever tried to organize one of these things it’s a daunting task. With Zippido you could create a task “community yard sale” and then from your social network get the help of your neighbors. You would know who’s making the signs, who’s advertising on craigslist, who’s advertising in the paper and who’s getting breakfast. With Zippido all the tasks are there for whoever you invite into them.

Although Haynes came up with the idea himself, and it’s got an awesome intuitive UI, Zippido reminds us a lot of what Google Wave would have been like if it was on Facebook. The downside to Google Wave was that you couldn’t bring the collaborators in as easy as you could with Facebook. This sets Zippido apart in it’s own right. Trust me, comparing Zippido in this way is a compliment.

We got a chance to catch up with Haynes, who is extremely busy with multiple startup projects. Here’s the rest of the interview:

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

I came up with the concept for ZippiDo! about two years ago. ZippiDo! is an Invenitas company, which consists of myself, Jon Stutzman (Creative Director), Paul Santulli (IT Project Manager and COO), and Bert Weidt (CTO). I am the chief development, and vision leader. Invenitas is also involved with other startups such as 11Mhz Media which recently launched ElevenReasons.com.

More after the break
Read More…

Where’s The Beef? New Kansas Startup AgLocal Will Help You Find It

I’m going to break the code of hipster bloggers by publicly announcing that I am an omnivore there is nothing I enjoy more than a nice big steak complimented by some kind of exotic potato side dish, some asparagus and a beer. Yup that’s me. Sorry vegetarian and vegan bloggers. That’s why I’m really thrilled to hear about a new startup called AgLocal.

I heard some murmur about the startup and it’s founder Naithan Jones who left his job as director of Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundations aspiring entrepreneur FastTrac program to undertake his own startup.

So here’s how this AgLocal works. Farmer’s markets are actually growing. If you’ve been to a farmer’s market in a decent sized community you’ll probably be inundated by fruits, vegetables, locally raised grass fed cattle, a few food trucks and cupcakes. You typically know where the farmer’s markets are or your local Whole Foods, but what if you don’t. AgLocal connects meat sellers to meat buyers.

Now you can order you meat straight from a local farmer and even cut out the grocery store. Jones and his co-founder Jacob McDaniel have been visiting locally owned farms across the midwest and have signed up over 100 farms already. The strategy is to connect local people to local farms.

More after the break
Read More…

Kansas City Startup: Rare Wire Takes The Wraps Off Their Native Mobile App Building Platform

The do it yourself app space is getting crowded, however most of the DIY app building platforms are based on HTML 5 or just wrappers for mobile sites. What Matt Angell and Kirk Hasenzahl, the co-founders of Rare Wire have built is a platform for non-developers to build their own native apps.

If you’re not familiar with the term native apps, that’s an app that you download to your smartphone or other mobile device, that for the most part functions on it’s own on the hardware side. Non native apps require the backbone of the internet to operate on and HTML 5 in most cases. The advantage to native apps is that they are popular and give the developer and user a sense that the app is created specifically for what it was downloaded to do. The advantage to HTML 5 is that it’s truly multi-platform enabled.

Rare Wire is an app development firm that builds white label apps for clients like the United States Military Academy at West Point, Ebony Magazine and the Atlantic, so they have a bunch of credibility backing them. They’ve been using their platform, called The Wire, to build apps for their clients, but are now unleashing it to other developers. According Hasenzahl the platform that they’ve developed allows developers with just web development experience to design truly native apps.

More after the break
Read More…

Kansas Startup Front Flip Takes Their Virtual Scratch Card Platform National

In Overland Park Kansas, home to Sprint, a new startup called Front Flip has been trying out a new and fun way of engaging customers and increasing loyalty in Kansas, Chicago, Columbia, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Orlando, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, and St. Louis. As we’ve reported with startups like Lokalty and FreebeeCards the loyalty, rewards and engagement space is heating up big time right now. Part of the reason is because local merchants are becoming tired of killing their margins with daily deals sites that only attract a customer one time, and that one time is typically at a loss.

That’s one of the reasons why Front Flip co-founder and CEO Sean Beckner created Front Flip.

“The market is ready for a change. Daily deal programs aren’t building customer engagement or rewarding loyalty — in fact, they have rather the opposite effect,” Beckner said in a release. “Front Flip’s mission is to help businesses engage with their customers in a fun and exciting way both inside and outside the store by increasing understanding and building customer loyalty.”

More after the break
Read More…

TutHopper Wins Startup Weekend – Kansas City

Kansas City: TutHopper took the top prize at the Startup Weekend in Kansas City. Like many (if not all) discussions about startups, the inevitable comparison to either a hot company like Pinterest or Path or even the mighty Facebook, Tuthopper is being compared to the site codecademy.

I usually cringe when I hear a colleague of mine begin a conversation with a startup with “So your app is like blank company but different, right?” That just starts everything off on the wrong foot (IMO). In the case of TutHopper, I think it is absolutely fair to make that connection, because it really is very similar in scope and practice to Codecademy the only difference being TutHopper is focused on children.

The TutHopper team was made up of 10 members (2 of whom are women) Carrie Royce, Cindy Fisher, and then Justin Murray, Kyle Webster Adam Arredondo, Coty Beasley, Eze Redwood, DJ Good, Troy Norris and Jon Kors. This team, like all the other participants in the weekend, came together on Friday following a presentation of the favored pitches. Then the group of 98 participants split into 13 different groups to put together a product that could at least be marketed as well as have a polished pitch prepared for the judges. Out of the 13 teams, 12 teams made their pitch at the end of the weekend. Discussing the idea behind TutHopper and why it is important, Carrie Royce stated,

“Kids have a greater capacity for learning if they’re exposed to concepts early on—reading, math, even foreign language. And in essence, programming is a foreign language—a language that kids are going to need in the future given the increasing role technology plays in our lives,” said Carrie Royce, team member of TutHopper and CMO at Red Nova Labs. “But the education system in the U.S. isn’t taking on that challenge. Computer games are an ideal way to get kids engaged in learning programming outside the school system. If the games are sufficiently fun and challenging, kids will be proactive about signing on and learning at increasingly complex levels.”

Meanwhile fellow team member Adam Arredondo shared how it was behind the scenes for the team,

“Our team was unselfish and hardworking with enough comic relief to keep everyone upbeat,” said Adam Arredondo of the group’s vibe. “It was a huge relief that the judges were able to look past the technical errors during our presentation and see the tremendous potential TutHopper really has.”

The following are prizes for first, second, and third:

First place – 3 months of free space at Office Port for up to 5 people. And a booth at the Sprint Innovation Summit where several Sprint execs and investors will be accessible for potential funding and advising.
Second place – $1,000 worth legal services
Third place – Organizer high-fives, coke and smile.

Coming in second place was Keyzio “Where every house is for sale.” Basically if you find a house that you are interested in purchasing you can take a photo with the GPS coordinates embedded in the meta data in the photo and when you arrive home you are able to send a postcard notifying the currents owners your interest, even if the home is not on the market. And in third place was the Grüple team with yet another option for mobile payments. Grüple is an app that creates, notifies and provides different groups with simple and quick ways to conduct monetary reimbursements.

Kansas City Entrepreneur Inspires Startups To Get Fit With New Fitness Startup Blog

The managing partner and co-founder of Think Big Partners, Herb Sih, has launched a new startup of his own called “Startup Your Fitness”. The new media startup (blog) aims at giving startup founders and entrepreneurs who live the workaholic startup lifestyle fitness and living tips that fit into their busy lives.

The site, which launched on the first of April, was no April Fool’s joke. “Startup Your Fitness” offers exercise tips, diet tricks and health advice that can fit into a busy lifestyle. Sih created the startup because as a serial entrepreneur he found himself drifting further and further away from being in shape.

“I know many other entrepreneurs who are in the same boat as me,” says Sih. “They’re passionate and committed to their dreams, but struggle finding time for exercise and living a healthy lifestyle. So, I’m challenging them to join me in my next venture in building an exercise regimen that works for entrepreneurs just like me.”

More after the break
Read More…