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Cornbread Hemp's Website In the last MetroStart podcast, we talked to Cornbread Hemp's Jim Higdon about their ongoing equity crowdfunding round. This week, we talk to Jim again about how they knocked it out of the park - nailing an oversubscribed $107,000 round in...

Cornbread Hemp's Website Louisville's Cornbread Hemp just scored a local fundraising first. They're the first company to receive Render Capital's $20,000 investment in their WeFunder Match Fund. They're also the first local company to raise funds using Regulation CF...

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...

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...

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...

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...

  Local company SkuVault has won a lot of awards and made a lot of headlines lately.  They're one of the local Endeavor companies, and they're a shining example of how to go from scrappy bootstrapped startup to amazing success story. On this episode of the Metro...

Did you know that Kentucky is home to a fantastic new drink called Baqua?  They're poised to grow rapidly along with the world's passion for all things natural and healthy. Baqua’s founder and CEO, Sandra Marlowe, was inspired by the wonder of international cultures...

  From the very first Metro Startup Launcher investor meeting, Lisa Britton has been an active participant.  She understands that more startups in our community will produce more jobs and more wealth.  She also wants to help by being an active "micro-angel...

  In previous blogs, podcasts, and videos, we laid out lots of facts as to why startup companies produce jobs and wealth.  The main points: < Startup companies produce an average of 3 million jobs per year. < Existing companies produce NET ZERO new jobs per...

Have you ever wondered how Gill Holland got started?  He built a company that The Hollywood Reporter named as one of the top ten movie production companies in New York City.  He runs his own record label and music production companies with world famous artists.  He...

Angel Group Update: Halo Report Annual 2016 Highlights and Trends What angels need to think about when writing checks. Download...

Why is it that regular people don't get to invest early in companies like Airbnb? Did anyone ask you if you wanted to invest in Google or Uber when they first got started? Would you have invested? How do these examples apply in any way to the Louisville area? Many...