Close to 550 people attended Pi515’s 10th annual Day of Innovation and dinner, said Pi515 founder and executive director Nancy Mwirotsi. The first year, about 100 people came to the event run on a shoestring budget of $500. “That went to food, we learned to make sandwiches ourselves to serve…
Basi Affia, founder of the Des Moines-based comic book production company Sensi’il Studios, took second place in the 2025 Athene Black & Brown Business Summit Pitch Competition, held in West Des Moines April 16-17. “It’s an honor to be on stage with so many high-caliber business owners and people who…
Iowa founders should ‘dream bigger’ Kaylee Williams, investment director at InnoVenture Iowa, Iowa’s first publicly backed venture capital fund, recently shared this advice for startup founders: “I would just say, dream bigger,” said Williams during a panel event at Maple Studios on April 2. “Seriously, my biggest critique of Iowa…
BrokerTech Ventures, a broker-led convening platform, recently hosted the nine insurtech startups participating in the organization’s sixth accelerator program for a two-day event in Des Moines. The event, called BTV Mania, brought the startups together to meet BTV’s 25 broker and insurance company partners at Holmes Murphy’s Waukee headquarters. The…
Ag-tech fund raising new $10 million fund to provide scaling capital Ag Startup Engine, a fund for ag-tech startups, made six investments in new companies in 2024, bringing the fund’s total portfolio companies to 40, according to its latest annual report. The report also shows Ag Startup Engine made three investments…
An Ames-based animal vaccine startup is on the path to getting U.S. Department of Agriculture conditional approval for a highly pathogenic avian influenza vaccine, its co-founder said recently. Joel Harris, the CEO and co-founder of Genvax Technologies, said in mid-March the company is hoping to do more animal studies in the…
As part of a refresh of the Business Record’s Innovation Iowa brand, we have created a new landing page on the Business Record website to house all Innovation Iowa coverage and more stories from the Business Record covering innovation and technology.
Visit www.businessrecord.com/innovation-iowa to view all Innovation Iowa stories, including the 2026 Innovation Iowa Magazine, out now.
-Sarah Diehn, Business Record Editor