The Iowa Go-To-Market Accelerator, a partnership between the ISU Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship, BioConnect Iowa and VentureNet Iowa, has announced its summer 2026 cohort. The accelerator supports technology-driven startups as they strengthen their
business models and work toward commercialization. Participants begin with individualized planning sessions before diving into focused programming that sharpens their go-to-market strategy and positions them for long-term growth.
The summer cohort includes:
• Homeschool Foundry (Davenport), co-founded by Jen Myers and Monica Snyder: Homeschool Foundry is building the trusted decision-making layer for homeschool
curriculum, helping families confidently find the right fit through parent reviews,
curriculum discovery tools and data-driven homeschool insights.
• Ikwe.ai (Des Moines), founded by Stephanie Stranko: Ikwe.ai builds behavioral
safety infrastructure for conversational AI. It’s the first safety benchmark and
monitoring system to make sure AI is helping, not harming.
• Kalium Agri Inc. (Des Moines), co-founded by Scott Boken and Fernando Valdez:
Kalium Agri offers a must-feed ingredient that improves dairy cattle production and
health status while allowing users to save significantly by feeding more oilseed
byproducts.
Applications are now open for Iowa-based scalable startups interested in joining the next
accelerator cohort launching in October. Eligible companies have ideally completed a
previous incubator or accelerator program and are based in Iowa. The accelerator accepts
applications on a rolling basis, with cohorts beginning in April and October. For more
information, founders can contact Peter Hong at petehong@iastate.edu.