Excerpt from Missouri Business Alert:
Nine founders of the Techstars Kansas City 2020 class pitched their companies to possible investors via Zoom on Thursday evening. Lesa Mitchell, managing director of Techstars Kansas City, said that this year’s class is a group with a common goal: solving “real problems.”
“Real problems are problems that everyday people have,” Mitchell said. “They are also problems that corporations have.”
The nine businesses started the three-month startup accelerator program in early June and capped it off with Thursday’s event, getting funding, mentorship and other resources along the way.
Thursday’s event provided an opportunity for each startup to briefly pitch to investors and supporters.
Presenters included Courtroom5, a company created to address the expenses and unreliability of lawyers. Its mission is to teach people how to navigate the justice system through an automated legal toolbox.
Founder Sonja Ebron said that the product is more useful than ever given all of the legal issues that COVID-19 has created.
“With all of the economic consequences of the pandemic, there’s going to be huge numbers of legal disputes,” Ebron said. “Most Americans won’t have a quality lawyer because they simply can’t afford (one).”
— Tom Kavanaugh, Missouri Business Alert
