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Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2013 9:07 am
by earthling
Kauffman study: KC’s tech density was skyrocketing before Google Fiber
A Kauffman white paper ranked the Kansas City area, including Missouri and Kansas, No. 1 in the nation for having the largest increase in concentration of information and communications technology startups during the 20-year period. Kansas City surpassed Seattle and Denver, which came in second and third, respectively.
In terms of flat numbers, Kansas City came in 13th on Kauffman’s list of the top 20 metropolitan densities of IT and communications technology startups. San Jose and Seattle topped that list.
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... l?page=all

Is inline that in 2011 KC ranked 14th (actual $, not per cap) for Information industry earnings....
http://www.bea.gov/iTable/drilldown.cfm ... 1&nRange=5

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2013 10:51 am
by Eon Blue
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... l?page=all
Transportation startup reaches a crossing point

Tom Hilleary, an inventor who has developed safety systems for the largest railroad companies in the country, is looking for seed capital to get his new idea off the ground.

Hilleary, now the president of Kansas City transportation startup Island Radar Company LLC, is looking for a total of $1 million to help him develop a radar detection system that will improve safety at railroad crossings, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The kicker? Hilleary already has $600,000. He said the money came from Fort Worth, Texas-based freight carrier BNSF Railway Co., the Federal Railway Administration and the Illinois Department of Transportation who are interested in the safety applications of his radar system.
Cool!
Hilleary said the equity round will help to commercialize his product. For now, Hilleary is based near the Country Club Plaza and has a few employees. He said he will consider moving to Johnson County and making more hires in the near future, but he was not specific about hires or the future location of his offices.
Wait, what? Why is moving to Johnson County treated as a foregone conclusion here!? I wonder if the owner is just blatantly fishing for KS incentives.

See how far we've come, see how far we have to go...

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2013 11:11 am
by brewcrew1000
I didn't realize Front Flip was based in the KC area, i kind of like this app. It kind of sucks they are located in Leawood, that would be a perfect company for the Crossroads area.

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2013 11:05 am
by earthling
SubTropolis (underground cave) has attracted a major data center, to invest up to $80M. There has been some data center activity in KC caves but is curious is taking so long for the industry to take notice. Doesn't need as much cooling as caves are naturally <70 degrees year round, and cooling is one of most expensive parts of running a data center. And is not likely to be impacted by tornadoes or weather. And subtropolis has all the infrastructure needed - power, major data lines, etc. KC also has over a dozen longhaul providers that bring big internet backbone pipes into KC, only Dallas and Chicago have as much in central US.

They need to do a nationwide promotion of cave data centers and try to attract more, if even secondary backup data centers for others. Sounds like they can add millions of more sqft of data center space in the caves as needed.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... l?page=all

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:43 am
by earthling
Cloud computing company from France selected KC for its N American HQ.
“If there were a handbook for how companies like ours should come to the U.S.,” he added, “it would probably say, ‘Go to Northern California.'”

But BIME’s due diligence revealed that the Silicon Valley region is a hypercompetitive market in terms of attracting top talent. The research also surprised BIME’s officials in France by revealing that Kansas City should be on its radar screen along with tech hotbeds such as Boston, Dallas, Atlanta and Denver, Lysinger said.

“The fact that Google made the decision to make Kansas City its initial market for Google Fiber helped validate Kansas City as a technology town,” Lysinger said.

BIME officials also were impressed by the fact that Kansas City ranked third in startup activity among large U.S. cities during the past decade.
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... l?page=all

Might be surprising they're willing to take an extra hop on plane to get here but with robust telecommuting/web conferencing now, travel may not be very common and no longer a top requirement for some companies. I work on international projects once in a while but travel less often overall as everything can be done with web conferencing and working on a document together over a web meeting. With KC's lack of major hub, especially international flights, the direction towards web based meetings might make it less of an issue for HQ site selection depending on type of company - probably less of an issue for tech companies. And of course Google presence helps.

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 1:14 pm
by earthling
Silicon Valley company picks KC over Austin for small branch office. Google Fiber was initial attraction but city overall sealed the deal..

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/11/08/46 ... small.html
Kansas City competed with Austin, Texas, for the center.

“We selected Kansas City because of its central location and access to technical talent from its 20 local universities,” Scott Hassan, Suitable Technologies CEO, said in a statement. “As our business continues to grow, we look forward to the opportunity to bring local talent on-board.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/11/08/46 ... rylink=cpy

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 5:46 pm
by chingon
earthling wrote: Google Fiber was initial attraction but city overall sealed the deal..
Don't they both have google fiber? I mean, KC is cooler than Austin by a factor of about 4, but isn't the google fiber thing equal?

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 6:08 pm
by pash
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Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 9:55 am
by earthling
Google says they'll start Austin installs next summer but they were a year late with KC. I was in some Austin forums discussing Google fiber (and also was at Austin tech conf earlier this year) and it was interesting to see Austin has some inferior complex to KC in some ways - lack of useful freeways in Austin, no major league sports, no amusement parks, etc. Consensus from those who know both cities was that Austin is a giant college town with major research university tied to Silicon Valley, KC is a small major league metro with more entrepreneurship, IT and telcom industry.

KC can compete with Austin in tech in many ways methinks. Austin has higher profile tech branch offices and is media darling city but KC has more actual income tied to sci-tech. KU is no UT but Lawrence/KC has caught up with Austin in VC funding (before Google rolled out in KC). With Google now drawing attention to KC, an extra boost is already showing.

The hype might be worth as much or more than the actual Gbit connection.

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2013 1:43 pm
by earthling
More stats. This shows growth of Pro/Sci/Tech Services employment in KC metro and MO side for each Oct over 10 years. Does not include Information jobs (mostly telcom/publishing).

KC metro grew by near 23K sci/tech jobs over last 10 years..
Image

MO side has over half of metro sci/tech jobs, grew by 12K over 10 years. Although JoCo has the bulk of Information/telcom jobs. Cerner/Stowers will boost KCMO further with new campuses.
Image

For context MSP only grew by 11K over 10 years and KC metro passed up STL metro in pro/sci/tech jobs, which only grew by 10K over 10 years...
Image

However when looking at Information jobs, it bombed out in many telcom cities and publishing is declining everywhere. KC metro now only has around 30K Info jobs however growth in sci/tech has more than offset it. Only the hot 'tech cities' recovered from Info jobs by increasing sci/tech services. KC appears to be one of them and if Sprint can recover and stay in KC, Info could boost too.

Source: http://data.bls.gov/pdq/querytool.jsp?survey=sm

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2013 11:48 pm
by pash
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Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2014 11:03 am
by earthling
KC gets a prop from techie.com on promising tech hubs to watch in 2014...
http://techie.com/techie-coms-most-prom ... kansascity

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2014 11:24 am
by heatherkay

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 1:22 pm
by earthling
BATS Global Markets in Lenexa is now officially second largest US stock exchange, a tad larger than NASDAQ and just behind NYSE, basically in top 3. And remains largest in Europe.
The combined entity is now one of the largest stock exchanges in the world. It has a 20.54 percent U.S. market share, right on the heels of market leader New York Stock Exchange's 20.58 percent share. Nasdaq OMX is third with 20.02 percent. The merger also makes BATS the top U.S. exchange for exchange-traded funds. Its subsidiary BATS Chi-X Europe remains the largest stock exchange in Europe with a market share of 22.11 percent.
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... cle_search

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 10:24 am
by earthling
This claims State of MO had the highest jump in tech jobs in last year. It's a Dice.com survey so is maybe by job openings, perhaps not filled employment.
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/b ... gains.html

According to BLS data it's not the case, MO as a whole only gained about 500 tech jobs (net employed, so maybe lost or replacement jobs too) from Dec to Dec.

State of MO Sci/Tech/Eng jobs over 10 years..
Image

STL Metro gained in last year but still down from peak...
Image

KC Metro has been gaining at steady pace lately and passed STL recently. Per cap, KC has always been pretty high.
Image

See breakdown of MO/KS side a few posts back. MO side of KC metro is growing at fasted pace.

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/querytool.jsp?survey=sm

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 5:58 pm
by earthling
230 more Life Sciences jobs planned for a pharmaceutical company in Marion/Cerner Bannister site.
http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/10/48 ... st_lstnews

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 1:16 pm
by earthling
A tech company from Omaha is moving to downtown KC in Xroads. MindMixer - 85 employees.

http://www.kansascity.com/2014/04/14/49 ... ng-to.html

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 4:37 pm
by rxlexi
A tech company from Omaha is moving to downtown KC in Xroads. MindMixer - 85 employees.
Excellent news. Stories like this represent what I hope to be the future of KC. The "capital" city of the plains, pulling talent and youth out of Omaha, Wichita, Des Moines, etc. As those cities continue to grow and nurture their own entrepreneurial and cultural scenes, hopefully KC becomes something of a destination for some of the best and brightest people, companies, and ideas within them.

That isn't meant to read at all as a slight to those places, as what's good for them is good for us, and vice versa. Omaha in particular is really booming lately, and we could learn a lot from their riverfront planning, among other things. But I'd love to see KC really own the title and function as the central player in the region, and collect talent from that broad inner-midwestern base (while STL pulls from the bulk of Missouri and lower IL, upper TN, etc.). I think that is happening, slowly.

Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 9:37 pm
by pash
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Re: KC tech|startups|entrepreneurial thread

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 9:56 pm
by earthling
I would be surprised if the Sprint HQ remains in KC for much longer. Perhaps the Operational HQ but not Corporate HQ - this was the case for a while when Sprint and Nextel merged and the Corp HQ was in DC area for a while and KC was Operational HQ. Then KC became Corp HQ again. Given KC's lower cost of living/operation, it may have a chance to keep operations but I suspect Sprint/Tmobile will eventually merge and KC could lose operations to Seattle. Too much speculation for now but not unrealistic path.

KC's strength has always been entrepreneurs and growing small companies. Losing Sprint would be a major hiccup but there's enough momentum in other places to offset losses - Cerner alone. A bigger issue is getting progressive people to move here to fill in more jobs than skilled workers and KS/MO dark ages politics at state level aren't helping much. Austin and Atlanta have similar state level political issues but have college town vibe and media darling attention that KC doesn't quite have (yet).