Kansas City-area investors have committed $10 million to the KCRise Fund designed to funnel local capital into area startup businesses alongside experienced venture capital groups.

The KCRise Fund is called a side-car fund because it follows the lead of venture capital groups in deciding which new businesses to back.

Darcy Howe, managing director of the KCRise Fund, said it will “take several years for us to invest all the money.” Investing with the venture capital groups is intended to boost the likelihood that KCRise invests well.

Companies seeking money from the fund must reside or have substantial operations somewhere between Manhattan, Kan., and Columbia, and be seeking at least $1 million in financing.

There’s a bit of a chill in Silicon Valley. The reality is that snagging venture funding is getting much harder.

So what should an entrepreneur do? Well, Sash Sunkara definitely has some actionable advice. Keep in mind that she recently secured $10 million in a Series B funding.

Then again, her company, RackWare, is a top player in the fast-growing market for comprehensive cloud computing management. Oh, and she knows how to hit her numbers and milestones.

For freshmen taking writing composition at the University of Arizona, receiving a C at the end of the semester may no longer warrant a sigh of relief.

Instead, they may have to repeat the class.

Two years ago, Arizona hired Civitas, an education technology company that uses predictive analytics, to track student behavior in an effort to boost student graduation rates. One finding jumped out: students' performance in commonly required courses was linked to whether they would graduate or drop out.

The Need for New Business Models

As more blockbuster drugs tumble off the patent cliff, resulting in price competition and margin pressure, the pharmaceutical industry recognizes the need for new approaches. Armin Furtwaengler, the global senior medical director and contributor to the ‘Global Medicine Innovation Framework @ Boehringer Ingelheim,’ says he is tasked with taking his company “beyond the pill” and notes that “100% of my working time is dedicated to innovation.”

Image: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

Knowledge@Wharton: Venrock was an investor in Dollar Shave Club, which was recently sold to Unilever for $1 billion. In some respects, that sale had to make you feel good about the faith you had in the idea originally.

David Pakman: It’s always nice to see an entrepreneur get their dream to come true. This was an incredible team. And it’s true, not a lot of investors believed in them early. It was a company that was hard to raise money for in the early days. But I saw a lot of interesting numbers and trends, and I believed in the team. It had a lot of conviction. So we led the Series A and the Series B rounds, and it worked out great for everyone.

Of all available options to incorporate, I hear it again and again that if you are to seek funding - angels of VC - you have to be incorporated in Delaware and be a C-Corp entity.

The argument is that 1) C-Corp set up is the most favorable for investors and 2) this is the way it has been done for a very long time and investors are simply the most comfortable with this approach.

This means that if you register in any other way, you will have to restructure. If you have registered outside Delaware, you will most likely have to move your company registration, or no funding.

Is getting buried in student loan debt really a necessity when there are hundreds of work-from-home jobs that don’t require a degree? 

That depends. For some people, attending college is about networking, meeting new people, getting out of your shell and even earning degrees that can actually make you a valuable individual. 

Cybercrime damages cost the world $3 trillion last year alone, according to a recent report from Cybersecurity Ventures, and that figure is expected to double by 2021, putting it on par with the current sum of U.S. corporate debt. This catastrophe will probably worsen before it improves. As smart-home technology spreads through the Internet of Things (IoT), a Security of Things (IoT) infrastructure will need to come with it.

FBI chief James Comey yesterday reiterated the importance of covering up your webcam -- comparing it to locking your doors and setting up alarm systems.  

With the number of cyber attacks today, it’s easy for hackers to break in your computer and spy on you through your webcam.

For years, Brooklyn Navy Yard sat underutilized, a massive piece of real estate on the Brooklyn waterfront filled with the relics of World War II. 

But now, Washington, D.C.-based startup incubator 1776 is doing its part to revive the historic space.

1776 is setting up shop in the navy yard as the anchor tenant, opening the doors of a "beta" space as it continues work on its 32,000-square-foot campus nearby. The company is rehabbing part of a massive building that used to house munitions during World War II with plans to move into that space — called building 77 — in the first few months of 2017. 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his pediatrician wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, announced this week that their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will fund a $3 billion effort to cure all diseases.

Mark Zuckerberg announced in December 2015 that he was going to give away 99 percent of his wealth. But instead of forming a traditional charity, he bequeathed his Facebook shares to his own Limited Liability Corporation, called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

In 2014 the Greater Des Moines Partnership, an economic and community development organization, announced the Global Insurance Accelerator, aimed at growing insurance-based tech startups. It only makes sense that the partnership would seek to do the same for agriculture, which it will do with a newly announced ag tech accelerator.

Image: Mike Colwell, Executive Director of Entrepreneurial Activities at the Greater Des Moines Partnership, wants to duplicate the success of their insurance accelerator in the agriculture space. Photo courtesy of the Greater Des Moines Partnership.

Entrepreneurship. The mere mention of the word can send tingles up your spine. It seems like there has never been a time in human history where so many people dream of the glory and riches that come with entrepreneurship. It’s exciting. It’s lucrative. And it’s very sexy.

That’s what people think. But the truth is, entrepreneurship can suck sometimes. Actually, in the beginning, it sucks pretty much all of the time. And while it is worth it, and I certainly could not be doing anything else, there are a couple of hard truths that you need to know about entrepreneurship before you start your first business.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — In one corner of the first floor of this bright, open building with a modern industrial feel is a shop room. On the other end of a floor they call the "garage" are a series of small glass offices with white boards and 3D printers. The upper floors of University of Utah's new $45 million Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute are dorm rooms and open spaces with flat-screen TVs and picnic tables, each themed for students studying focused on careers in design, gaming or outdoor adventure.

The facility unveiled Thursday is designed to foster a creative environment to help students launch startup companies. The mantra adorns large banners around the building: "Live. Create. Launch."

Image: http://host.madison.com via Spenser Heaps/The Deseret News via AP

NEW DELHI: GE Healthcare, the USD 18-billion healthcare technology unit of GE, has announced USD 50-million funding aimed at improving services of healthcare startups in developing countries.

GE Healthcare has set up an accelerator -- five.eight -- that will work with global health startups working in areas of disruptive, low-cost technologies and digital applications, which will improve healthcare quality and accessibility in developing or low-resource settings.

Image: The four social impact investors include Acumen, Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group, Unitus Seed Fund and Villgro. 

To be competitive in our global economy, Canadian businesses need the right people and access to critical skills to deliver results quickly. Unfortunately, the battle for such talent is fierce and many employers in the Canadian startup and innovation space struggle to attract and retain key workers. In fact, the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) predicts that, by 2019, Canada will need an additional 182,000 skilled information and communications technology workers alone to meet the domestic needs of employers.

Image: http://betakit.com

IBM Corp. – the 105 year-old computing giant known for its cloud services, Watson analytics platform, and a decision to sell its personal computing division to Lenovo in 2005 – opened a startup incubator in the heart of downtown Toronto today.

The newly-launched IBM Innovation Space will be dedicated to helping tech startups take advantage of IBM’s wide range of technology, legal advice, and marketing expertise as they step into the global marketplace.

HEAD OF THE CLASS

Think about it: There are two primary reasons that you should care about crowdfunding: Either (A) because you’re considering tapping into this funding source or (B) you’re seeking information on general business trends (of which this is one). Whatever your motivation, you’d do well to check out a brief overview on how crowdfunding has done since it’s inception.

Have you ever wanted an out of body experience, sans meditation or drugs?

You may find it with the Carolina Reaper Madness chip, Paqui chips' latest deadly creation. It's literally the hottest chip in the world, and only one chip comes in a package – the package being a coffin-shaped box.

Do immigrants take jobs from Americans and lower their wages by working for less?

The answer, according to a report published on Wednesday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, is no, immigrants do not take American jobs — but with some caveats.

The question is at the heart of the furious debate over immigration that has divided the country and polarized the presidential race. Many American workers, struggling to recover from the recession, have said they feel squeezed out by immigrants.