Sioux Falls Two years after an appearance in an Apple ad on the small screen, the app of a Sioux Falls startup is now featured in a billboard campaign by the California company. "We couldn't be more pleased to discover that Montessorium's Intro to Letters app was featured in the new Apple iPad campaign," co-founder Bobby George said on the company's blog last week. Bobby and his wife, June, co-founded Montessorium in 2010. Today, the company is four people strong and on its fourth app, each inspired by the Montessori approach to learning. "We always feel so fortunate, and humbled, to work with the amazing folks at Apple," George said in an email … read more

Kansas City Less than a week after Trellie surpassed its $30,000 Kickstarter goal, the Kansas City startup's co-founder Claude Aldridge told Silicon Prairie News his company closed a $500,000 financing round led by former Sprint president and COO Ron LeMay* and tech investor Lance LeMay. The father-son duo were part of an "eclectic group" of 10 investors, Aldridge said, that included … read more

Kansas City Following Wednesday's news that Brad Feld purchased a home in Kansas City's first "Fiberhood," we reached out to the notable venture capitalist to learn more about the backstory of his purchase and his interest in Google Fiber. "I met Ben Barreth at Thinc Iowa. I loved his story and the Hacker House idea," Feld said in our email interview, referring to his appearance at our event last October and a project by Barreth … read more

Lincoln A group led by Lincoln, Neb.-based NUtech Ventures today announced its next move to support the state's entrepreneurial ecosystem: an early stage startup accelerator it calls NMotion. "We looked at where NUtech could play a role, and obviously not driving it as a university accelerator, but just as a catalyst to help," said NMotion director Brian Ardinger. "And my role of actually just taking the reigns and push this through and marshal some muscle behind this whole thing." Since coming on board a… read more

Des Moines StartupCity Des Moines, an early stage tech startup incubator in its second year, announced today the addition of two Des Moines startups to its group of residents. PosterZen, a web-based tool to create and order custom posters, came on board in November and PhoneBank.org … read more