Meg Anderson, vice president and chief information officer at Principal Financial Group, speaks at TAI’s Catalysts Live event on Dec. 4. Photo provided by TAI Des Moines met the stories of ten women shaping their industries on Tuesday. At the Technology Association of Iowa’s reception of the Catalysts project’s first year, attendees gathered in the […]
The Iowa AgriTech Accelerator received first place in the 2018 Entrepreneurial Awards, hosted by the Mid-America Economic Development Council. The accelerator, launched in 2016 by the Greater Des Moines Partnership and Cultivation Corridor, came in first for communities with a population over 50,000 and accepted the award during the Dec. 2-4 Mid-America Competitiveness Conference & […]
Smart Ag founder/CEO Colin Hurd joined this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 entrepreneurs in manufacturing and industry across the U.S. and Canada. Hurd, who is 28, graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Agriculture and Business in 2013 and went on to develop AutoCart, an automated grain cart system that allows farmers to […]
The Ag Startup Engine’s seven initial agricultural startup companies have collectively raised more than $10 million in follow-on investments, the organization announced today. The seven portfolio companies within ASE at Iowa State University Research Park have also created more than 40 jobs since the initiative’s launch. Established in late 2016, the ASE began by looking […]
After two years of piloting in Iowa, FarmlandFinder will debut in 12 more Midwestern states this winter. “We’ve been starting to branch out and build relationships with those people, and showing them early access. We’ve got people that are testing that software right now,” Founder and CEO Steven Brockshus said. “The whole premise of FarmlandFinder […]
Rantizo, Inc.: $500,000, completed in October. Based in Iowa City. Participating: Innova Memphis (Memphis, Tennessee).
SwineTech: $1.5 million in the company’s second round, completed in June. Participating: AgVentures Alliance, Quake Capital and InnovaMemphis. The June round added eight additional full-time jobs to SwineTech, co-founder/CEO Matthew Rooda confirmed, adding that “a majority” of funding came from Iowa and Minnesota. SwineTech is planning an expansion through North America and into Canada, Rooda […]
The Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) program is designed to support successful Iowa-based grant applications through the Small Business Administration. One component of the program provides up to $50,000 in financial assistance to companies – $25,000 upon receipt of an SBIR or STTR award and $25,000 upon submission of a phase II […]
Organizers celebrated the Iowa AgTech Accelerator’s second cohort on Tuesday with a little reunion at the 2018 Borlaug Dialogue. Representatives of the accelerator’s five startups pitched their agtech businesses to attendees at the annual Norman E. Borlaug International Symposium, hosted by the World Food Prize Foundation at the Downtown Marriott.“Their focus on global food sustainability is […]
First launched in 2014, the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2) is now partnering with the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center to promote sustainable agriculture technologies, Wells Fargo announced on Tuesday. The expansion will support technology developing and commercializing technology that reduce agriculture’s carbon, energy and water impact, said Mary Wenzel, head of Sustainability and Corporate […]