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  Did you know that almost all investment returns are now private? If you don't invest early, you don't make any money. If you're going to invest in a tech company like Uber, you MUST invest while the company is still private or long before the company is sold. A...

Steven Plappert and two co-founders, Andrew Busa and Chris Pierce, started an online fantasy sports company in 2013 called FantasyHub. The company saw early promise and growth, moved to Austin, TX to join the TechStars accelerator program, and even attracted $1.1...

People often cite healthcare as an area of expertise that may help propel Louisville, KY to greater startup and business prominence in the United States, and Dr. Angelique Johnson is helping us make that happen. She holds undergraduate degrees in mathematics and in...

What single Louisville company is part of the same fraternity as Airbnb and Dropbox? It's a company called WeatherCheck, and they now are an alumnus of the prestigious Silicon Valley accelerator Y-Combinator. They're the first and only Y-Combinator company to date...

  Since the very beginning, MetroStart (formerly Metro Startup Launcher) has worked to make it easier for startup companies in our area to raise capital and get started. With a lot of trial and error, we believe we have figured out a much easier way for startups...

Patrick Henshaw came to Louisville about 4 months ago to lead the Louisville Entrepreneurship Acceleration Partnership (LEAP) as CEO. If you're part of our entrepreneurial community, you've probably seen him speak at an event or two. You've probably heard some of his...

Rebah Wheeling was a successful insurance claims adjuster. One emotional day while meeting with a hurricane victim lead to the founding of her fast growing local company - Schedule It. In this podcast, Rebah talks about the emotional moment that lead her to start her...

  The "Sharing Economy" has been an amazing driver of wealth and convenience for the world. Companies like Uber, Lyft, and, Airbnb have dramatically changed the way we get from one place to another, stay in one place or another, and get things done. They also...

Increasing the number of local angel investors has been the goal of Metro Startup Launcher from the very beginning. We've done a lot of blogs, emails, and podcasts, and now we've participated in two different types of crowdfunding campaigns. How's it going? Well, one...

Two Louisville crowdfunding projects are rolling right along, and here's the latest on how you can invest: Cuddle Clones The Cuddle Clones® story began when Founder Jennifer Williams was lying down with her best pal in the world, her Great Dane Rufus. Jennifer thought...

What a week we had recently for local entrepreneurs! I hope you had a chance to attend some of the Kentucky Startup events. With Endeavor's International Selection Panel and Steve Case's Rise of the Rest Tour making Louisville its only return city to date, we have a...

MobileServe is a fast-growing mobile app company that helps organizations track and encourage participation in volunteer activities: tracking, managing, and reporting their social impact.  They're a great example of how you can see a problem in your own workplace and...

I've been starting and building companies for 24 years.  During that time, I've also participated in and studied angel and venture capital investments.  For the past year and a half, I've been writing Metro Startup Launcher articles and taking a deep dive into...

Artificial intelligence is quickly affecting more and more of our lives, like it or not.  I personally look forward to the day that lots of "bots" do all my busy work and leave me free to be much more creative.  Could AI take over the world?  Elon Musk thinks so. ...

In the latest edition of the Metro Startup Launcher podcast, I interview Ted Smith, CEO of Revon Systems, Inc. Ted has been a major influencer of our startup community in many ways for quite a while.  He's been a researcher, an entrepreneur, and even the Louisville...

  We've been slowly gearing up for equity crowdfunding projects for quite a while in order to build our audience, and we're finally getting the party started! To access our crowdfunding projects: [button link="https://metrostart.org/invest/" type="big"...

An opinion post by Bill Huston, CEO of Our Crowd Rocks (https://ourcrowdrocks.com):   An Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Louisville Steve Case pointed out that the playing field is not level regarding investing. In 2016, 70 percent of venture capital funding went to...

To all our friends in the Louisville area, In June of 2016, PNC’s Regional President, Chuck Denny, was instrumental in bringing Steve Case to Louisville during his “Rise of the Rest” tour. Case is the founder of AOL and started Rise of the Rest to highlight...