The finalists in this year’s 1ST50K grant competition are headed to Cape Girardeau, Mo. this weekend to show off their stuff to the ecosystem and make their pitch to win a $50K equity-free grant. Three of the ten finalists are from Missouri and whichever one wins will have to move their headquarters to Cape for a year as a condition of the award. The finalists are:

  • Particle Space – (Kansas City) Automated property management platform.
  • STOCKHAUS – (Cape Girardeau) Digital wholesaler app.
  • Noninvasive Diagnostic Instruments – (St. Louis) Non-invasive blood cholesterol testing.
  • Advanced Robotics – (Pasadena, CA) AI/Robotic medication dispensing system.
  • Food Haven – (San Francisco, CA) A surplus food marketplace connecting restaurants with eaters.
  • RentHub – (New York, NY) A data platform for rental housing industry.
  • Seamly Systems – (Huntsville, AL) Open source software for clothing design and patterning.
  • Slice WiFi – (New York, NY) WiFi technology for places difficult to connect.
  • WATT (Los Angeles, CA) Platform for virtual charity walk/run events.
  • XpressRun – (Louisville, KY) Last mile logistics platform for retailers.

David Biga, Particle Space CEO

“Winning this would be additional validation to what we’re doing in the real estate market,” Particle Space CEO David Biga told the 4thEst8. “It also means building a network within the community that we previously didn’t have.”

Two weeks ago Biga closed on a $636,000 pre-seed round from unnamed angels in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. The two year old Kansas City startup has two full time employees but Biga expects to fill at least three full time positions soon. Particle Space is a product of KC-area ESO’s like KC Collective, UMKC Tech Ventures and Digital Sandbox.

“Raising in the Midwest, especially pre-seed, can be difficult,” Biga said. “Depending on the industry you’re in it’s just a lot easier most of the time to raise in your coastal cities, or Chicago.”

Regional ‘brain drain’ of our most likely high growth tech startups has a silent cost to all of Missouri. 1ST50K was formed to address the problem.

1ST50K is a partnership of Codefi with the Missouri Technology Corporation, and is supported by other public and private entities (banks, chambers, city government). In the Spring of 2020, MTC selected 1ST50K as an award recipient for their highly competitive grant competition, Missouri Building Entrepreneurial Capacity. The award is matched dollar for dollar by local, private donations to support the project, and the award provides a regional focus to 1ST50K as well as support to launch 1ST50K in partnership with Southeast Missouri State University.

1ST50K generally awards one or two companies a year, but broke with tradition in 2020 when it invested in four startups: Venku, SportsTrace, Swipesum and Upswot. Codefi founder Chris Carnell did not make himself available for comment for this article, but a spokesperson says 1ST50K will likely award as many as eight of these startups and assign four to the Codefi colocated workspace in Cape as well as four to the space in Paducah, KY. 

In addition to the $50K, startups receive membership in the Codefi co-working space and technology incubator, business coaching, mentorship, and introduction to venture capital and angel investment networks.

Links: 

1ST50K/Codefi 

On the 4thEst8: 

Cape Girardeau Nabs Four Tech Startups