Market Wagon LLC, an online farmers market and delivery service, announced it has expanded to the Greater Des Moines area. The startup company, which launched in 2016 in Indianapolis, now operates local food networks in more than 30 metro areas with a focus on helping local farms and artisanal food vendors sell their products locally […]
From a sales career at Wells Fargo to running a business building life-size Lego statues, Chris Ihle will celebrate his return to Iowa with a live Lego build of George Washington Carver at this year’s Iowa State Fair. He started his company, We Build U, in Iowa in 2018 with everyone working out of basements, […]
Like nearly all offices, Gravitate Coworking was quiet throughout 2020 as many worked from home. While its two locations never closed last year and precautions were in place, visitors to the space remained slim. But since the vaccine for COVID-19 became available, numbers have steadily returned to normal levels, and founder Geoff Wood said this […]
The Cedar Rapids-based Iowa Startup Accelerator is accepting applications for its fall cohort. Managing Director Alex Taylor said applications are open until Aug. 15. The cohort is expected to be announced by Aug. 27, and begin on Sept. 13 in Cedar Rapids. Taylor said applications will be reviewed to ensure they meet the qualifications of the program. […]
In 2020, the Business Record unveiled its annual innovationIOWA Magazine with less than three months to perfect our Zoom events technique. In 2021, we made the Zoom unveiling bigger and brought in four expert panelists to lead a truly statewide forum exploring how companies can support hybrid and fully remote organizations going into the future. […]
The Techstars Iowa Accelerator is welcoming 10 new companies to the 2021 cohort. Nearly all those in this year’s cohort founded their business amid the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns during 2020, said Kerty Levy, managing director of Techstars Iowa. “What that says is that they’re hopeful. They trust that they can create, they can make great […]
Des Moines entrepreneur Ben McDougal joined the Techstars Iowa team in a combined entrepreneur-in-residence and ecosystem development role, the accelerator announced last week. McDougal is a four-time company founder and co-founder, an author and is currently the midwest regional representative for the 1 Million Cups entrepreneurship network. The second class of Techstars Iowa begins July 19.
America’s SBDC Iowa is launching the Inclusivity Challenge, designed to support minority-owned small businesses and entrepreneurs to establish themselves for economic prosperity. The Inclusivity Challenge provides resources including customized, culturally relevant business and financial advising, business education webinars and access to the most well-connected small business networks. A kickoff event for the initiative will be […]
Des Moines lending platform LenderClose promoted Trinh Le-Coulter to vice president of people power, the company announced this week. Le-Coulter is the former director of operations for LenderClose. In her new role, she will lead LenderClose’s company culture as well as leading the operations department. LenderClose also announced two new team members: Bill Taha, director […]
The Iowa State University Startup Factory announced nine new cohort companies for the 2021 program. Cohort X entrepreneurs are Ruben Aria (company unnamed), Jared Dopp (Frugi Biotechnology), Allison Hockey (Lineage Mapper), Nacu Hernandez, Baker Kuehl and Austin Homann (MacroLei Technologies), Nathaniel Kallmyer (Zymosense), Katherine Richardson Bruna (Mosquitoes & Me), Aaron Rosenberg (Rosenberg Solutions), Shan Jiang, […]