The Mississippi Seed Fund, managed by Innovate Mississippi, has invested in five companies in the first quarter of 2021. The companies receiving investments are StayCool Brands, Fan Space, Live Music Network, Rocketing Systems and CampusKnot. "We're delighted that these companies have come out of 2020 with promising products and business…
A little more than two years ago, Thomas White, an experienced barber, noticed that electric hair clippers—used extensively for Black and Latino hair styling—have a tendency to overheat too quickly, necessitating that barbers own and use multiple pairs throughout a workday. White pitched the idea of building better clippers to…
Innovate Mississippi has approved Starkville-based CampusKnot for a 2021 Mississippi Seed Fund award. CampusKnot offers a mobile app designed to help professors and teachers promote classroom participation among college and high school students. The company also added three new angel investors this quarter: Mike Morgan, Huey Ngo and Shaheed Khwaja,…
STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State has received formal approval to build the Northern Gulf Aquatic Food Research Center, a multi-million-dollar facility in Ocean Springs and the first of its kind on the Mississippi Coast. The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, Jackson County Board of Supervisors and Jackson County Port Authority have formally…
JACKSON, Miss.—The Mississippi Entrepreneurship Forum (MEF) announces the inaugural NextUp Statewide Student Pitch Competition, which will be held on April 13, 2021, to kick off their 6th annual forum designed to bring together the innovation community and discuss resources and strategies for Mississippi entrepreneurs. Student entrepreneurs from all Mississippi colleges, universities,…
Formerly Flowers to the Grave, BloomBridge gained new team members and energy in 2020 to expand their offerings throughout the southern United States. In 2019, Kristen Allen met Huey Ngo through an Innovate Mississippi mentor: Mike Morgan, an experienced technology executive and professor of practice at the University of Southern…
by Tasha Bibb Over the past 15 years, I’ve worked with nearly 1,500 startups. I’ve studied countless others. In my research, both primary and secondary, I’ve realized that one of the main contributors to entrepreneurial success is the founders' ability to network and their willingness to collaborate. You’ve heard the…
ClasScape started at a hackathon on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw reservation when co-founders CEO Patrick Boudreaux and COO Dalton Pruitt went with an idea for using virtual reality, or VR, in classrooms. Boudreaux's wife, a teacher, was having trouble engaging her students, and he thought virtual reality, or VR,…
Technology firm’s non-profit arm supports efforts to get critical learning component in all classrooms Jackson, Miss. (January 7, 2021) – The C Spire Foundation made a $1 million commitment Thursday to assist school districts across Mississippi with implementing computer science programs in the classroom. One of the primary objectives of the C…
This week, SuperTalk Mississippi covered the launch of the Central Mississippi Angel Fund by invited Innovate Mississippi CEO Tony Jeff and Fund President Matthew McLaughlin on the air. The Central Mississippi Angel Fund was announced earlier this month and is expecting to both add local investors and begin considering deals…