Here's another article - including a video - that was published in Forbes magazine earlier this month..............
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Million Dollar Carrot Dangled As St. Louis Redefines Itself In Tech Start-Up Space
Aaron Perlut
06/14/2012 @ 10:50AM
Square Founder and St. Louis Native Jim McKelvey
When you think of technology start-ups, a small cluster of cities comes to mind – Silicon Valley, Seattle, Austin and Charlotte.
But St. Louis? The old-line, union-heavy town built around a river economy?
Indeed, it would seem an unlikely spot for consumer technology start-ups. But, under the radar, the red bricks and mortar town has been working to redefine itself, making a major push to redefine itself as a tech center.
Excerpts from the article:
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"Consider these developments:
Arch Grants, advised by Square co-founder Jim McKelvey, just awarded $750,000 in grants to 15 tech start-ups that agreed to move operations to St. Louis. The 15 companies were chosen from over 400 applicants from around the world; one of the winning companies is relocating from Costa Rica (here’s a great video about the program).
Capital Innovators, a tech accelerator, has graduated its first group of start-ups and is seeing results in companies like web security firm Norse Corp.; Lockerdome, which has gone on to raise $2.1 million; and SaaS software firm JBara Software.
And, most recently, Capital Innovators got a major shot in the arm in the form of a promise of $1 million from early stage VC fund Cultivation Capital that will go to the most promising companies of the next two graduating classes."
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"All the while, St. Louis looks to remarket itself and redefine an image. All it takes is a couple of locally based home runs to begin the process of restyling the city that already has a major nest of bioscience companies, but has not yet struck gold with consumer tech start-ups."
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