Kerty Levy (standing), newly named managing director of Techstars Iowa, at Tuesday’s launch announcement with Jainen Thayer, chief investment officer for Grinnell College, and Claudia Reuter, managing director of the Stanley + Techstars Additive Manufacturing Accelerator. Photo provided Tuesday was a good day for Mike Colwell in Des Moines. It capped off quite the season […]
The Iowa AgriTech Accelerator will host its third Demonstration Day at the Des Moines Embassy Club Oct. 15 in conjunction with the World Food Prize and 2019 Borlaug Dialogue and International Symposium. Doors open at 5 p.m. and presentations will begin at 5:30 p.m. More than 120 volunteer mentors worked with the accelerator’s four agtech […]
Nadilia Gomez will join the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator as executive director beginning on Aug. 1, the accelerator announced. Gomez joins the accelerator from Corteva Agriscience, where she served as a senior research scientist in Predictive Ag, and a digital pillar leader of the Disruptive Business Innovation Portfolio. At Corteva, Gomez was responsible for tactical and […]
Five agtech startups have been selected to the 2019 cohort of the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator, the accelerator announced this week. The program will run from June 3 to Aug. 30 in the East Village, with final Demonstration Day pitches during the World Food Prize in October. Participants are Otrafy (Vancouver, Canada); droneSAR (Des Moines); Vitalgia (Heerlen, […]
The Iowa AgriTech Accelerator is searching for its next executive director, the Board of Directors announced on Monday. The new executive director would work closely with interim director Kerty Levy for the 2019 cohort and take full responsibility after the cohort’s end. A hiring decision is expected to be made in May. Details on the […]
At the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator’s second annual AgTech Day, nine agritech startups – mostly from Iowa, and two from Nebraska and California – jumped at the chance to meet the experts. Some of the founders have bootstrapped their business off the ground for initial sales. Others were seeking insight on some of their early product […]
Former executive director Megan Vollstedt has left the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator to begin as the Agronomy & Technology Editor at Successful Farming, a Meredith Corp. publication. Vollstedt, who began at Successful Farming last week, was the first director at the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator. The accelerator launched the first cohort in 2017 and selects six international […]
The Iowa AgriTech Accelerator is taking applications from early-stage startups seeking to join its third cohort, the accelerator announced on Monday. The 2019 program runs from May 28 to Aug. 29 and accepts up to five startups worldwide. Those selected will receive $40,000 in seed funding, subsidized housing and office space, and will have time […]
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 & […]
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 method of broadcast dispensing granular […]