KCRise Fund makes first two venture capital investments

KCRise Fund, a new Kansas City-based venture capital fund that piggybacks on other investor funding, has announced investments in SpiderOak and Innara Health.

SpiderOak, an online data security company based in Mission, and Innara Health, a developer of neonatal medical products based in Olathe, are the fund’s first recipients.

The KCRise Fund was created earlier this year with about $10 million in investments from 30 area individuals, families, institutions or companies. It’s designed to co-invest with institutional venture capital firms to help early-stage entrepreneurship.

Darcy Howe, KCRise Fund manager, said the initial investments show that the fund “is officially on its way to making capital more accessible to our home-based entrepreneurs.” The fund is an offshoot of KC Rising, an effort by several area agencies to support economic growth in the region.

KCRise investments are capped at $1 million per company over time, but initial investments, such as for SpiderOak and Innara Health, are designed to be between $200,000 and $500,000 each, Howe said.

Diane Stafford, stafford@kcstar.com

This story was originally published October 19, 2016 at 4:00 PM with the headline "KCRise Fund makes first two venture capital investments."