Blog
Feb 01

St. Louis InSITE Spring Kickoff 2016

The Spring semester for InSITE had a fantastic launch filled with speakers and startups. The morning started off with the announcement of our three projects for this semester:

  • Chrona Sleep – a technology company that integrates motion-sensing technology hardware and a mobile application to optimize sleep habits.
  • Fluent – a block-chain based Fintech firm that is developing a digital currency to assist in international trade.
  • The Normal Brand – a midwest-based regional clothing brand that is experiencing explosive growth.

After our teams broke up to discuss projects, they reassembled to hear from Art Chou, the managing partner of Stadia Ventures, an accelerator focused on sports companies. After a lunch with partners at Cultivation Capital, a local venture capital firm, InSITE heard from Travis Sheridan, Executive Director of Venture Café Foundation and Kate Howell, Director of Venture Philanthropy at Arch Grants, two of St. Louis’s most well-known organizations. These companies are primary contributors to the incredible growth in entrepreneurship St. Louis has seen over the last 5 years.

InSITE St. Louis Fellows with Travis Sheridan from Venture Cafe at T-REX

These discussions were followed with a presentation on corporate venture capital by Monsanto and Gateway Media, two firms which combined offer over $100 million in funding per year to growing companies. Following this was an in depth conversation on “How to Scale Startups” with Mark Lewis, the CFO of Lockerdome. The company is one of St. Louis’s fastest-growing startups and has received over $18 million in VC funding. Afterwards, InSITE stayed on for a happy hour with many of the other startups housed within T-REX.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *