Techstars returning to KC for one-night-only meetup; teasing what’s next for the global accelerator

It’s easy to take for granted just how far the Kansas City entrepreneurial ecosystem has come, John Fein shared.

Kansas City-based Firebrand Ventures is teaming up with the global startup accelerator Techstars for a Community Meetup 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Feb. 26 at Grand Cafe on the Plaza. The event is free but space is limited.

“The goal is to just celebrate the growth of the Kansas City Startup community,” said Fein, managing partner of Firebrand, which is organizing the event as a marker of a decade-plus of progress across the local tech scene. “I first engaged in earnest in the startup community in 2013 — that was just when the Startup Village was getting going — and just to see the incredible growth since then, it’s amazing.”

“It’s easy to want more and want it to be better,” he added, “but the fact of the matter is, we’ve had tremendous growth as a community.”

Click here to register for the meetup before the limited spots are gone.

Techstars discontinued its accelerator program in Kansas City in 2021, but the accelerator network’s CEO David Cohen is re-engaging with many of its past communities, Fein noted.

“I personally felt like it was a loss when they decided to stop having the programs here,” continued Fein, who was the managing director for Techstars Kansas City for three years. “So I was thrilled when he said, ‘Hey, let’s have an event. We can cohost it and it can be former founders who went through the Techstars Kansas City programs, mentors, supporters, whoever.’”

“Then, I took it and ran with it a little bit,” he added. “And it grew and grew, and now it looks like we’ll have about 150 attendees across the entire community.”

John Fein, then-managing director for Techstars Kansas City, speaks during a 2016 demo day event; photo by Bobby Burch, Startland News

The event — with a brief program including remarks by Cohen — will be part reunion, part community gathering, Fein said. 

“The nice part about celebrating a community’s growth is you get the original members who really built the community up from nothing who will be at the event,” he explained. “So it’s a reunion of all these folks who were there at the beginning. But also it’s an all-are-welcome mentality. It’s really important to have everybody else there as well, including newer members of the community to network, meet new people, and also appreciate, like, how far things have come. Thirteen years ago, there was very little happening in the Kansas City startup community.”

What makes Techstars special, Fein noted, is the network of founders, mentors, and investors.

“I just hope that this just continues the momentum of getting people together,” he added, “because there’s no substitute for having people together in the physical space.”

Fein said several leaders from the University of Kansas are expected at the event, as the KU School of Business is a sponsor and Firebrand has recently launched The Hill Fund, which is dedicated to investing in KU founders. The university — alongside its alumni-led companies — ranks among the top 15 universities for cumulative exit value at more than $118 billion, Fein noted.

“The KU entrepreneur community is much more powerful than anyone imagined,” he continued, “and The Hill Fund is built to ensure Kansas City benefits from that continued success in the years to come.”

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