The Business Record announces the honorees of the 2018 innovationIOWA awards. Sheffield-based Sukup Manufacturing is the recipient of the Corteva Agriscience, Agriculture Division of DowDuPont innovationLEADER award. The company employs nearly 600 and is a three-generation family business that began with Eugene Sukup in 1962. “Innovation is critical to its…
Des Moines game developer Brad Dwyer is keeping an eye on Facebook. Small business owners have been watching since news leaked in March that Cambridge Analytica, a third-party provider, was able to purchase Facebook user data from a rule-abiding personality profile application. The user data was then sold to President…
The Iowa AgriTech Accelerator announced five agtech startups selected for the program’s 2018 cohort. “We received a number of great applicants from around the country and the world,” said Megan Vollstedt, executive director for the accelerator. The five startups are: U.S. Design Consultants, Osceola, Iowa, which has developed an innovative…
Three Central Iowa startups achieved top five placements at the annual Surge Summit, the closing workshop for University of Iowa’s Venture School. Mo’ Goodness, a Des Moines-based specialty food line, received $3,000 and first place in the day’s final pitch competition, out of 12 teams statewide that completed the eight-week…
Cedar Rapids Gazette: A Coralville company that filed for bankruptcy protection amid a dispute with its lender has let go 40 employees. Zero Energy Systems laid off its entire production staff effective today. More layoffs are expected as the company winds down operations, the company announced on Monday. Zero Energy,…
As you drive along Iowa’s highways in farming communities, the corrugated-metal exteriors of grain bins gleam in the sun or stand as agricultural sentinels amid storms and the state’s weather fluctuations. Many bear the name “Sukup,” a three-generation Iowa company that has grown into an international leader in grain bins,…
For Robert Riley, innovation is looking at Iowa’s lush summertime landscape as a photosynthesis machine feeding the world. It’s about creating food additives from corn oils and other materials at his flagship company, Feed Energy, while working day and night to improve the environment that corn is grown in. Riley…
A new venture capital firm co-led by former CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt will seek to invest in health care technology and service companies that deliver innovative care to urban, low-income populations, Modern Healthcare reported. The VC firm, Town Hall Ventures, will focus on building companies that provide higher-quality and lower-cost care…
Tickets are still available for EntreFEST 2018, scheduled for May 17-18 in downtown Cedar Rapids. Presented by the New Bohemian Innovation Collaborative and the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance, EntreFEST organizers bill it as one of the largest celebrations of the Midwest’s entrepreneurial community; panels advertised by EntreFEST focus on female…
When I meet with founders and startup supporters across Des Moines, everyone has a similar vision for their company: scale, then scale and scale. On a popcorn-fueled blog-binge Friday night, my favorite non-tech blog A Beautiful Mess introduced me to the business concept of reverse scaling. Although I don’t subscribe…
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