Last month Swiss Professor Heike Mayer mapped out the rich history of Kansas City’s nearly 600 tech firms and institutions. The data funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation shows Kansas City’s vast entrepreneurial development over the past 50-plus years. More than 200 entrepreneurs provided data through an online survey Mayer conducted between 2012 and 2013.
Mayer’s research shows that around a dozen firms and institutions—including the University of Kansas, Sprint, Marion Laboratories, MRI Global, Perceptive Software, UMKC and Cerner—have produced a majority of the IT and bio sciences companies in the Kansas City region.
The survey responses also gave interesting insight into entrepreneurial opportunities in the Kansas City area:
- 70 percent of Kansas City entrepreneurs used personal savings to launch their start-ups, while just 9.4 percent accessed venture capital. They cited difficulties in accessing capital locally, as well as local shortages of technology, marketing and sales talent.
- Advantages of the region include informal local access to innovative people, ideas and technologies, as well as supportive local entrepreneurship organizations and initiatives.
- Respondents gave mentors who give advice the highest rating (52.5 percent) as sources of new ideas for Kansas City entrepreneurs; customers and users followed at 43.8 percent.
Can you spot your own company in the Tech Galaxy?
Mayer considers the Tech Galaxy Map to be an ongoing process and encourages local companies to provide their own data. The form is available here.
the right fIT. 