Omaha What Cheer, an Omaha-based web application design and development shop, announced today it has joined Pack, a Los Gatos, Calif.-based startup building an online platform for dog lovers. "Working on our own projects has always been something that we've wanted to do," What Cheer founder John Henry Müller, who started the company six years ago, said in an interview Wednesday. Müller and his business partners Alex … read more

Des Moines Earlier this week, we shared the story behind the New York Times' Silicon Prairie story. In research for that post, I spoke with Jordan Lampe, director of communications at Dwolla, the Des Moines-based startup prominently featured in the story. In addition to learning about Lampe's role in The Times story, I took the opportunity to ask the early Dwolla hire how he's gone about securing consistent and notable press for the payments network. Dwolla is one of the most buzzed about startups in the Silicon Prairie region and, at some points … read more

Kansas City "If (Iowa) can do it, we can all do it," Startup America Partnership CEO Scott Case says in a white paper released Thursday that examines the Startup American Partnership at the 18-month mark. The Kansas City, Mo.-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which provided funding for the Partnership's launch in January 2011, published the paper, "The Start Uprising." StartupIowa, along with the other 28 startup regions, follows a new … read more

Olathe Garmin co-founder Min Kao points to an early decision to provide insurance and other benefits to employees as one that helped his company build a strong corporate culture. "Even when advisors said 'no, don't do that til you're successful,' but we did," Kao (left) told the Kansas City Star in what the outlet called a rare interview. Kao, along with Gary Burrell, started Garmin in 1989. Today, the … read more

Overland Park ABPathfinder recently closed a $400,000 investment round thanks to Omaha-based Dundee Venture Capital, CEO Jeff Blackwood said. The Overland Park, Kan.-based startup, which aids therapists of children with autism in creating therapy plans via specialized software, raised $270,000 from Dundee in November. In May, as part of the same round, it secured $130,000 from Watson Technology Group … read more

West Des Moines One week after a partnership announcement with a U.S. financial firm, West Des Moines-based Social Money makes headlines in India on another front: its social, goal-based savings platform went live today with the country's largest private sector bank. ICICI Bank is using Social Money's enterprise product … read more

Kansas City Tom McDonnell, a man who for months has been at the center of considerable speculation about the next president and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, has been tabbed to take the reins of the Kansas City, Mo.-based organization, which has an asset base of close to $2 billion and focuses on entrepreneurship and education. The Kauffman Foundation's board of trustees announced the … read more

Kansas City CNN show Anderson Cooper 360º on Monday highlighted the entrepreneurial activity taking place in the first neighborhood to receive Google Fiber in the Kansas City area. "In the bustling heart of Kansas City, the pioneer spirit is burning brightly," CNN's Tom Foreman reports as footage from the Nov. 28 edition of 1 Million Cups appears. "Entrepreneurs trading … read more