Originally scheduled to make a stop in Wichita in 2020, Revolution's "Rise of the Rest Road Trip" with AOL founder Steve Case has once again been postponed over growing concerns about the Covid-19 Delta variant.
The traveling tour bus was expected to make a top in Wichita during the upcoming Wichita Startup Week in October. Although the trip is postponed, the seed fund team says it is still committed to awarding $100,000 to a winning startup in Wichita and the four other Midwest cities on the schedule.
"And when we get the bus back on the road next year, those five new "Rise of the Rest"-backed founders will be in the front seat," the ROTR team said in an online statement.
Applications for the pitch competitions were due Aug. 22. From that batch, ROTR says it will review and select a winning startup in each city.
Wichita Startup Week, planned for Oct. 4-8 at Groover Labs, is still putting on a $5,000 pitch competition sponsored by Cox Business, and an EY Hackathon taking place Oct. 1-3 will award another $5,000 to the winning team that builds the best business plan from scratch.
ROTR's $100,000 pitch competitions are designed to invest in promising entrepreneurs outside of Silicon Valley, Boston and New York City.
"We’ve long said that what makes our road trips so powerful is the opportunity to bring together individuals and organizations from across the community to celebrate what makes a city special," the online statement says. "We are committed to delivering that experience for the five cities on the ROTR 9.0 agenda, and we hope to do so as soon as possible in 2022."
