Techweek Friday: LaunchKC is ready for liftoff

LaunchKC, the startup competition designed to attract tech entrepreneurs to build their emerging tech businesses in Downtown Kansas City, will take center stage at Techweek Kansas City today (Friday).

The 20 finalists will make their pitches for $50,000 to LaunchKC judges and the Techweek audience in the Chamber Board at Union Station from 8 a.m. to noon. At the conclusion of the 20 presentations, the judges will break to review, score and determine which 10 startups will be announced as grant recipients at the awards ceremony. The LaunchKC awards ceremony will take place at 3 p.m. in the Extreme Screen at Union Station.

The finalists presenting today were selected from a pool of more than 400 businesses who applied to LaunchKC during the 90-day application window that closed in early July. More than 40 judges, experts in the startup community as well as the financial, legal and health industry sectors, volunteered their time over four weeks to thoughtfully review each application several times to narrow the field to the 20 presenting this morning.

The 2016 class of finalists, revealed on August 25th, features 12 startups from the Kansas City metropolitan area, seven from other U.S. states and one international applicant from Austria. They are competing for one of ten $50,000 grants, a year of free office space in Downtown Kansas City as well as professional mentoring support.

The 20 finalists for the LaunchKC grants competition include:

• Aces Health – Atlanta, Georgia
• Backstitch – Detroit, Michigan
• Big Bang – Kansas City, Missouri
• BLITAB – Vienna, Austria
• ConsultUS – Prairie Village, Kansas
• EnduraLock – Overland Park, Kansas
• Eyes on Freight – San Francisco, California
• FEWDM – Kansas City, Missouri
• Forest Devices – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 
• Glober – San Francisco, California
• Herd Scout – Overland Park, Kansas
• iShare Medical – Kansas City, Missouri
• LaborChart – Overland Park, Kansas
• MailControl – Chicago, Illinois 
• Mobility Designed – Roeland Park, Kansas 
• Mycroft AI – Lawrence, Kansas 
• Ombitron – Seattle, Washington
• PerfectCube – Lenexa, Kansas
• SeudoSkull – Kansas City, Kansas
• Super Dispatch – Kansas City, Kansas

LaunchKC is an initiative of the Downtown Council (DTC) of Kansas City, Missouri, working in collaboration with the Economic Development Corporation (EDC).