Yes, you heard it right. We are now in Kansas City. Following the yellow brick road to Emerald City...or actually Kansas City in Missouri to be exact. What’s in Kansas City besides awesome BBQ? ;-) Well, KC happens to be:
- 1 of 3 cities in the world to currently have Google Fiber
- Home to a few world class startups that grew up (including Sprint, Garmin, H&R Block, and Hallmark)
- Where Walt Disney grew up and found inspiration in a local mouse
- Home to one of the nation’s largest urban parks, Swope Park, which is twice the size of NYC’s Central Park
- The global leading center for animal health and nutritional research
- The location of the new Sprint Mobile Health Accelerator powered by Techstars
The last two points are really important to us because we are leading the frontier in innovation for doggie mobile health and because...we were accepted and are now a part of the Sprint Mobile Health Accelerator powered by Techstars in Kansas City! Here’s a big WOOF to that!
For those of you who are not familiar, Techstars is the #1 startup accelerator in the world who provides seed funding + mentorship from the world’s best entrepreneurs. It’s a highly selective program where only fewer than 1% of the companies that apply get accepted. Of the 300+ companies that have completed the program since 2006, 90%+ are still in business.
Together with Sprint - yes, the cool wireless communications company, they are offering a group of 10 lucky startups their combined help to build the future of mobile health that will change the world, one patient at time. Or one dog at a time in our case.
We're super proud to be ensuring that the future of mobile health included a focus on our furry best-friends and four-legged kids. And what better way to change the world than to have the world’s best resources and operators backing you? With access to Sprint’s world-class wireless expertise + technologies and research facilities, support from Techstars’ global community and network, dedication and involvement from the top leaders in the healthcare industry (and animal health) in Kansas City, we feel ever more confident in fulfilling the FitBark mission of creating a world where smart technologies help us improve the health of our dogs and understand our dogs better, so we can live magical lives together.
To all our amazing Kickstarter backers and dog parents who have pre-ordered a FitBark, rest assured this will not impact the delivery or production of your FitBarks. In fact, we are confident that with our new-found resources and support network, we will be able to create a world-class product for each and every dog out there. They fill our lives with joy and happiness, and we owe it to them!
Here are our fellow Techstars brothers and sisters. If you’d like to check out the latest innovations in human mobile health, look no fur-ther: Prime, Symptomly, Sickweather, Medicast, Yosko, Tenacity, Ollo Mobile, Akiba, Lifeline Response
Stay tuned for updates on our journey through the accelerator and how the FitBark team is doing in taking over Kansas City.
The doggie mobile health revolution starts now!
Bark at you soon,
- Team FitBark
