The St. Louis startup scene is powered by people eager to take risks. These first-time founders and seasoned innovators are launching companies prepared to tackle real-world problems, while drawing on the expertise of the region’s network of mentors, funders, and peers to turn their ideas into viable businesses.
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Amanda Hausmann | MomMoment
This St. Louis mom left her attorney job to create MomMoment, an app that now has more than 600 users that has continued to grow since its June launch. (Read more here.) “We’ve seen busy working moms get much-needed help with home cleaning, meal prep, closet cleanouts, and running errands, while stay-at-home moms earn money on their own time,” Hausmann says.
Stephen Von Rump | Aegis Digital Health
The American Diabetes Association named Aegis Health, operating under the name SweetSpot, as a 2025 “Company to Watch.” Its most recent fundraising round brought in more than $1 million, including a $100,000 Arch Grants Growth Grant. “Despite serving providers and their patients nationwide, our roots are firmly planted in this community,” says Von Rump.
Tyler Richards | uFab
Richards started freelance designing circuit boards at age 15. His startup, uFab, helps domestic circuit board fabricators compete with overseas prices. Instead of having to import circuit boards—which are in everything that “blinks, beeps, or turns on”—companies can source them from the United States. With the looming potential increase in tariffs, Richards’ company can help save U.S. companies time and money.
Bob Mills | MaxFi
MaxFi’s founder, Dr. Joss Fernandez, recruited Mills to bring MaxFi’s work to St. Louis. Now, Mills has positioned the city as a hub for surgical simulation training. The company’s lab, which opened in April, provides lifelike cadavers to create highly realistic surgical simulations. “We’ve had Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Boston Scientific and Cook Medical all come out and say, ‘This is phenomenal. We need an education center here in the Midwest,’” Mills told SLM.
Yao Shepherd | Assertion AI
Shepherd believes in building a future where AI empowers everyone. He founded Assertion AI at the beginning of 2025 and beat 100 companies in the St. Louis regional competition of the Startup World Cup in August. The A12 Incubator, an entrepreneur AI startup group, selected the startup for participation, including $500,000 in pre-seed funding.
Andrew Young | Pairidex
Young balances his startup’s mission of reducing uncertainty in treating blood cancer with his teaching role at his alma mater, Washington University. Before founding the company, Young was a resident physician at Barnes-Jewish Hospital during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kim Hurst | Confluence Genetics
Hurst is leading the transition from Benson Hill to Confluence Genetics after the company took over its core intellectual property and assets in May. (Read more here.) She was vice president of corporate development at Benson Hill and is now CEO of Confluence Genetics. Hurst also serves as a member of the Clayton School Board.
Nadia Shakoor | Agrela Ecosystems
Shakoor is a plant genetics researcher turned agtech entrepreneur. As CSO and co-founder of Agrela Ecosystems and a principal investigator at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, she develops cutting-edge sensor platforms such as PheNode that bring real-time crop data and autonomous monitoring to the field to boost sustainability, resilience, and food security. She recently participated in a panel at Climate Week NYC discussing how to connect research to practice in today’s world.
Sally Mackenzie | EpiCrop Technologies
With a Ph.D. in plant molecular genetics from the University of Florida and more than 28 years of research experience, Mackenzie co-founded EpiCrop Technologies. Her combined knowledge of U.S. agriculture for vegetable and row crops, along with the lab’s revolutionary discoveries, helps farmers improve crop performance and resilience.
Tania Seger | Plastomics
Seger lives on a fourth-generation grain farm, and the agriculture industry is never far from mind for the CEO of Plastomics. The company has engineered soybean crops with insect and herbicide protection. Seger says the company’s next step is leveraging its current success to take on an even more critical market: corn.
