University Of Missouri, Kansas City

The University of Missouri will lead the Comeback KC Ventures project, which will unite the Kansas City region’s community-based public health, digital equity and education efforts with the regional technology entrepreneurial ecosystem to support the development of early-stage technology-driven interventions that can respond to these needs.

Kansas City will sprint toward 10 new businesses, 30 new jobs, $5 million in follow-on funding in an 18-month period that will start local and stay local to solve problems that COVID-19 has raised.

This project will be led by the UMKC Innovation Center in partnership with KC Digital Drive, combining the business-building strengths of UMKC IC with the community engagement and discovery processes of KCDD, the project will:

• Uncover COVID-related community needs in education, healthcare and digital equity
• Identify technology-based solutions to those needs
• Create an expanding regiment of Venture Fellows, entrepreneurs that receive needed support to rapidly develop solutions to meet these opportunities
• Connect Venture Fellows with civic and community leaders to align product-market fit
• Provide much-needed, early-stage proof-of-concept support to move ideas toward commercialization in the market
• Place a strong emphasis on developing minority- and women-business owners